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John  Herman  Randall,  Jr.,  was  born  in  Grand  Rapids, 
Michigan,  February  14,  1899.  Attended  school  in  Grand 
Rapids  and  New  York  City.  Received  B.A.,  June,  1918,  and 
M.A.,  June,  1919,  from  Columbia  University.  Since  1920 
Instructor  in  Philosophy  in  Columbia  University. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF 

GROUP  RESPONSIBILITY 

TO  SOCIETY 


AN  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
AMERICAN  LABOR 


SUBMITTED  IN  PARTIAL  FULFILLMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS 

FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  IN  THE 

FACULTY  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 


JOHN  HERMAN  RANDALL,  JR.,  A.B.,  M.A. 


NEW  YORK 
1922 


EXCHANGE 


CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

«*i.  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility i 

PART  I 

THE  AIMS  AND  MOTIVES  OF  LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS  IN  THE 

UNITED   STATES 

The  Place  of  Social  Theory  and  Programs  in  the  American  Labor 

Movement 23 

3.  The  Characteristics  of  the  American  ^     losophy  of  Democracy 33 

4.  The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  the  Thirties 54 

-5.  The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement 76 

6.  The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution 93 

T.  The  Conflict  of  Theories  and  the  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism 113 

8.  Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group 148 

9.  Business  Unionism — The  Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups 166 

10.  Business  Unionism — Its  Ideal  and  Its  Implications 185 

11.  Infidels  and  Heretics — Alien  Philosophies  and  their  Effects  on  the 

American  Labor  Movement 200 

12.  The  Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism 215 

PART  II 
GROUP  RESPONSIBILITY 

13.  Group  Responsibility — The  Problem 239 

14.  The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education 256 


INTRODUCTION 


I.  THE  PROBLEM  OF  GROUP  RESPONSIBILITY 

WHEN  we  look  abroad  upon  the  world  today,  at  the  close  of  a  war 
fought  because  of  the  conflicting  and  irresponsible  ambitions  of  the 
various  groups  of  mankind;  when  we  behold  the  dissensions,  the  strife  of 
interests  and  impulses,  the  selfish  nationalisms  and  the  bitterness  and 
hostility  which  mark  the  present  "peace";  when  we  look  within  the 
nations  to  class  wars,  prejudices,  and  hatreds,  and  observe  group  warring 
against  group,  capital  against  labor,  skilled  labor  against  unskilled,  craft 
against  craft,  and  see  strikes  of  the  utmost  seriousness  to  the  common 
welfare  threatened  and  fought  with  a  reckless  disregard  of  social  con- 
sequences surpassed  only  by  the  irresponsible  profiteering  and  manipula- 
tion of  the  manufacturers  and  producers  of  necessities;  in  a  word,  when 
we  look  upon  the  seething,  boiling  mass  of  contemporary  civilization 
some  two  years  after  the  world  was  supposedly  absolutely  at  one  hi  the 
accomplishment  of  a  single  aim,  we  are  disposed  to  agree  with  Mr.  Gra- 
ham Wallas  that  the  amalgam  seems  to  have  dropped  out  of  present-day  . 
society,  leaving  all  its  various  discordant  elements  free  to  pursue  their  I 
reckless  and  unthinking  courses  to  their  mutual  destruction.'  When  we 
look  closer  at  the  industrial  conflict  in  those  nations,  like  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  where  the  industrial  revolution  has  advanced  furthest,  and 
observe  the  refusal  of  the  workers  of  the  community  to  perform  their 
wonted  tasks,  even  when  tempted  by  wages  higher  than  they  have  ever 
before  known,  we  may  also  agree  with  Mr.  H.  J.  Laski  that  the  very  main- 
spring of  the  industrial  system  of  the  last  century,  the  willingness  of  the 
worker  to  produce  as  much  as  he  possibly  can  for  a  low  wage,  seems  tb 
have  broken;  and  with  Mr.  Arthur  Gleason  that  large  sections  of  the 
workers  refuse  any  longer  to  operate  the  system  of  private  enterprise  and 
private  profits.  Our  agreement  will  be  all  the  more  probable  if  we  realize 
that  the  war,  far  from  being  the  direct  cause  of  all  our  present  discontents, 
has  but  hastened  a  state  of  affairs  which  long  ago  was  foreseen  as  the 
inevitable  result  of  our  reckless  disregard  of  the  social  consequences  of 
our  ways. 

Most  of  us  have  not  yet  awakened  from  the  bewilderment  these  sudden 
and  stupefying  events  have  induced,  and  are  still  hoping  to  "get  things 
back  to  normal,"  "to  restore  pre-war  conditions."  But  there  are  some 
who  have  realized  that  even  the  election  of  a  second  McKinley  can  not 


• 


4  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

bring  things  back  to  where  they  were  before  the  war,  even  as  the  restora- 
tion of  Louis  XVIII  could  not  undo  the  work  of  the  Revolution,  spread 
far  and  wide  through  the  European  fabric  by  the  armies  of  Napoleon. 
Such  men,  and  they  are  growing  in  number  every  day,  are  busy  asking 
themselves,  "  Why?  "  What  is  the  cause  of  all  this  unsettling  scramble? 
Whither  are  we  as  a  civilization  tending?  And  they  are  patiently  seeking, 
in  the  very  framework  and  structure  of  our  modern  society,  the  answer  to 
these  questions. 

The  most  striking  difference  between  the  society  of  today  and  that  of 
the  pre-industrial  period  lies  in  the  far-reaching  and  intricate  economic 
structure  which  has  taken  the  place  of  the  old  simple  agricultural  com- 
munity. In  the  old  society  the  single  family  was  the  economic  unit;  all 
essentials  were  produced  in  the  household  itself,  and  there  was  very  little 
need  to  bother  about  the  families  who  lived  in  the  next  valley.  Whatever 
exchange  of  commodities  took  place  was  limited  to  the  village;  and  there 
was  really  small  reason  why  if  one  of  these  self-sufficient  communities  had 
been  shut  off  by  impenetrable  walls  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  it  could 
not,  with  never  a  thought  of  the  others,  have  thriven  and  prospered 
greatly. 

j  The  industrial  revolution  has  been  changing  all  that.  It  has  taken 
«  these  little  communities,  spread  at  random  over  the  surface  of  the  land, 
and  made  of  them  one  enormous  and  intricate  machine  for  the  satisfaction 
of  human  needs.  One  by  one  the  various  functions  which  the  farmer  used 
to  perform  for  himself  have  been  absorbed  by  highly  specialized  indus- 
tries; and  each  further  specialization  has  made  the  rest  of  the  community 
more  and  more  dependent  upon  those  who  control  the  physical  means  and 
the  technical  skill  necessary  for  the  performance  of  their  chosen  function 
in  industrial  life.  Men  formerly  cut  their  fuel  in  the  neighboring  forest; 
now  they  are  dependent  upon  the  distant  coal-mine.  Men  formerly  grew 
wool,  spun  it,  wove  it  into  cloth,  and  sewed  it  into  garments,  all  in  their 
own  household;  now  they  are  dependent  upon  the  Western  sheep-raiser, 
the  New  England  mill,  the  New  York  tailor.  Today  even  the  farmer,  and 
still  more  the  city-dweller,  would  be  utterly  helpless  if  any  breakdown  in 
the  great  industrial  machine  forced  him  to  rely  upon  himself  for  the 
necessities  of  life.  Each  of  the  functions  necessary  to  the  carrying  on  of 
life  has  been  assumed  by  a  specialized  type  of  worker,  and  all  depend  upon 
the  intricate  system  of  transportation  and  exchange  whereby  products  are 
transferred  from  those  who  have  made  them  to  those  who  can  use  them. 
This  growing  interdependence  of  society,  this  welding  into  one  great 
<.  organism  of  what  formerly  were  separate  and  rather  unrelated  units,  has 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility  5 

long  been  a  commonplace  of  the  economist;  but  it  has  been  forced  home  to 
every  man  by  the  experience  of  the  war.  Those  who  had  not  realized  the 
extent  to  which  society  had  become  one  great  machine  embracing  every 
man  learned  that  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  direct  the  national  purpose 
to  some  great  common  end  without  including  in  that  end  every  productive 
factor  in  the  industrial  system.  No  longer  was  it  possible  to  regard  the 
army  as  the  fighting-machine  par  excellence;  even  more  important  than 
the  soldiers  in  the  trenches  was  the  great.industrial  system  behind  the 
lines  which  made  possible  those  soldiers.  \JHie  war  revealed  a  society  so 


unified  by  its  very  differentiation,  so  completely  interdependent,  one  part 
upon  another,  that  only  as  a  unit,  as  a  completely  integrated  whole,  could 
it  prosecute  the  common  purpose.  It  was  no  longer  simply  a  question  of  > 
calling  an  army  to  the  colors;  it  was  rather  a  problem  of  mobilizing  an 
entire  nation!  Thus  it  was  impressed  upon  every  man  in  every  calling 
that  his  particular  work  was  an  integral  and  necessary  part  of  the  ef- 
ficient functioning  of  the  great  organization  fighting  the  enemy. 

This  industrial  system  has  its  invaluable  advantages  in  enabling  a 
large  population  to  live  in  comfort  where  in  the  old  society  there  was 
but  a  scanty  subsistence  for  a  meagre  people;  but  upon  them  it  is  not  per- 
tinent to  dwell.  It  has  one  great  disadvantage:  the  very  delicacy  of 
structure  necessary  to  produce  the  wonders  of  modern  industry  exposes 
society  to  a  thousand  and  one  dangers  undreamed  of  in  former  days. 
Every  disturbance,  however  slight,  is  caught  up  in  a  vast  network  of  re- 
lations and  transmitted  throughout  the  whole  system;  a  single  failure  of 
a  single  cog  will  throw  out  of  gear  the  entire  machine.  In  the  lower  or- 
ganisms it  is  possible  to  destroy  most  of  the  animal  without  injuring  it  ,^ 
permanently;  but  in  the  higher  mammals  a  slight  injury  in  the  right  place 
will  render  the  whole  body  helpless.  Just  so  the  older  society  could  en- 
dure almost  complete  devastation,  and  those  portions  left  untouched 
could  continue  relatively  unchanged;  in  modern  society  there  are  small 
groups  of  individuals  whose  destruction  would  bring  about  the  disinte- 
gration of  the  community.  In  the  city  of  New  York  there  are  any  number 
of  groups  upon  whom  has  devolved  the  performance  of  a  particular  func- 
tion which  they  alone  are  able  to  fulfill.  Should  anything  occasion  the 
withdrawal  of  the  transportation  industry,  or  the  means  of  getting  food 
to  the  city;  should  the  public  service  utilities,  the  purveyors  of  light  and 
heat^  suddenly  fail,  the  whole  city  would  find  itself  in  desperate  straits.  X 

{The  essential  requisite  for  any  highly  functionalized  society  is  that  alls\^-' 
the  various  parts,  all  those  individuals  who  perform  a  particular  task  in      1 

the  great  machine,  should  fulfill  their  functions  with  a  minimum  of  fric- 

jj  ^~ 


6  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

tion  and  a  maximum  of  efficiency  and  harmony.  l  Where  the  life  of  the 
whole  cannot  tolerate  any  interruption  or  any~mefficiency  in  the  pro- 
viding of  those  services  upon  which  it  depends  for  its  continuance,  it  is 
of  prime  importance  that  there  be  some  power,  some  force,  some  principle 
of  cohesion  compelling  the  elements  making  up  society  to  work  together 
for  the  common  good.  Only  when  they  are  thoroughly  habituated  to 
performing  their  part  in  the  great  engine  of  society  will  it  function  at  all; 
recalcitrancy  on  the  part  of  any  group  immediately  upsets  the  delicate 
balance  and,  unless  speedily  overcome,  ruins  the  whole  machine.  (For 
that  reason  the  fundamental  problem  of  social  organization  today  as  never^X 
before  is  at  bottom  one  of  education;  it  is  the  development  of  social  ways 
of  acting,  of  character  and  responsibility,  individual  and  collective.  The 
well-ordered  state  is  that  whose  institutions  foster  the  formation  of  habits 
of  social  cooperation,  and  provide  channels  through  which  the  energies  of 
man  can  be  so  liberated  that  they  directly  enhance  the  life  of  the  whole.  ~\ 
Without  in  any  sense  accepting  the  static  and  permanently  stratified" 
nature  of  Plato's  Republic,  we  must  take  the  harmonizing  and  ordering 
principle  of  Platonic  Justice  as  both  the  ideal  end  and  the  indispensable 
condition  of  any  state  which  is  to  serve  the  good  life;  and  we  can  strive  to 
attain  that  form  of  political  organization  which  will  permit  and  require  of 
the  members  of  society  an  individual  and  group  responsibility  for  the 
efficient  performance  of  their  necessary  functions  in  the  life  of  the  whole. 
^Nevertheless,  this  force  binding  and  welding  into  one  organic  union 

/  the  manifold  elements  making  UD  the  modern  industrial  state  has  been 
and  is  today  conspicuously  absent  A  Despite  the  close  interdependence  of 
the  modern  economic  structure,  which  makes  well-nigh  imperative  such 
a  harmonious  and  cooperative  functioning,  it  seems,  as  one  surveys  the 
bitter  struggles  at  present  in  progress  both  between  and  within  nations  in 
every  corner  of  the  globe,  as  if  Mr.  Wallas  were  right  in  asserting  that  the 
amalgam  has  dropped  out  of  present-day  society.  The  simple  facts  of  the 
case  are  that  those  cohesive  forces  which  under  the  old  agricultural 
society  were  fairly  adequate  to  secure  the  comparatively  slight  coopera- 
tion then  necessary  between  the  various  classes  of  society,  the  authority 
of  religion,  the  power  of  the  king's  army,  and  perhaps  above  all  the  time- 
honored  habituation  to  ancient  custom  and  the  inertia  of  a  stable  com- 
munity, have,  with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Great  Society,  largely  lost 

j    their  force  and  disappeared;  and  as  yet  there  has  arisen  little  to  take  their 

p    place.  V\A  society  which  depends  for  its  very  existence  upon  the  harmoni- 

ous cooperation  of  all  its  members  is  at  the  prey  of  groups  whose  purposes 

are  far  more  apt  to  be  the  callous  pursuit  of  their  own  private  interests, 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility  ^ 

and  so  far  the  sense  of  mutual  dependence  has  not  proved  strong  enough 
to  control  the  anti-social  motives]:^ 

The  necessity  of  securing  cooperation  between  those  who  do  not  as 
yet  realize  the  extent  of  their  mutual  dependence,  of  building  up,  as  John 
Stuart  Mill  phrased  it,  individual  and  collective  moral  character,  is  in 
no  sense  a  new  one.  It  was  recognized  by  Greek  thinkers,  and  it  is  to  the 
glory  of  Greece  that  in  her  political  We  she  achieved  something  of  that 
harmonious  functioning  which  has  been  the  envy  and  the  inspiration  of 
succeeding  ages.  But  it  is  a  problem  which  modern  economic  conditions 
have  made  peculiarly  urgent,  and  it  is  also  a  problem  whose  very  existence 
has  been  obscured  by  the  economic  and  political  theories  upon  which 
modern  civilization  rests  and  in  accordance  with  which  it  acts.  That 
theory,  assailed  at  its  birth  even  by  those  thinkers  who  gave  it  greatest 
popularity,  from  Bentham  down,  has  nevertheless  managed  to  retain, 
with  slight  modifications,  its  position  at  the  basis  of  our  legal  structure 
and  our  economic  system;  and  it  is  at  present  receiving  renewed  bondage 
even  from  the  theorists,  who  had  of  late  years  almost  all  deserted  it.\  The 
philosophy  practically  followed  in  the  law  courts  and  the  marts  of  trade 
today,  the  same,  with  one  modification,  as  that  delivered  by  the  Fathers  a 
century  ago,  can,  perhaps,  be  best  described  as  individualism  tempered  by 
democracy;  and  its  chief  characteristic  is  just  this  lack  of  recognition  of 
the  organic  nature  of  modern  society,  this  refusal  to  think  in  terms  and 
concepts  which  imply  a  community  of  units  functioning  in  the  life  of  the 
whole,  tjjis  emphasis  on  the  conflicting  rights  and  powers  of  individuals 
and  of  another  entity,  the  state,  set  over  against  them,  and  this  failure  to 
acknowledge  the  mutual  and  reciprocal  duties  of  its  members  in  the 
common  pursuit  of  life. 

True,  there  has  of  late  years  occurred  somewhat  of  a  collectivist 
reaction;  it  was  inevitable  that  the  palpable  inadequacies  and  the  gross 
failures  of  the  individualistic  system  when  brought  into  contact  with  a 
highly  industrialized  society  should  develop  some  antagonistic  theory. 
But  when  the  collectivists  tried  to  foster  among  the  citizens  of  the  state 
a  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole,  when  they  tried 
to  get  all  men  to  come  together  to  utilize  the  machinery  of  the  state  for 
the  purpose  of  achieving  social  ends,  they  failed  lamentably;  and  they 
failed  because  the  structure  of  society  is  by  no  means  so  simple  as  they 
had  supposed.  No  longer  can  men  be  regarded  as  the  isolated  units,  the 
simple  citizens,  which  both  the  individualistic  and  the  collectivistic 
theory  presupposes;  the  functionalization  of  the  economic  system  has  pro- 
ceeded at  such  a  pace  that  in  place  of  individuals  there  are  now  for  the 


8  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

x- 

most  part  groups,  and  it  is  to  these  groups  that  men  today  owe  their  pri- 
mary allegiance.  [The  business  man  or  manufacturer,  when  he  votes  or 
participates  in  any  way  in  political  life,  thinks  first,  not  of  the  good  of 
society  in  general,  but  of  his  own  economic  and  group  interests^  and  even 
more  is  it  true  that  the  average  worker  finds  that  economic  group  to  which 
he  belongs,  and  in  which  he  feels  that  he  is  playing  a  real  part,  to  be 
a  much  more  real  thing  than  some  distant  and  jrather  shadowy  legislature 
representing  the  state,  or  society  as  a  whole.  When  men  today  turn  to  the 
state,  it  is  merely  as  one  of  the  means  through  which  they^can  effect  the 
X.  purposes  of  the  group  with  which  their  interests  are  bound  up^\ 

And  so  it  is  that  those  qualities  of  loyalty  and  fidelity  to  one's  fellows, 
of  civic  pride  and  responsibility,  without  which  no  society  can  endure, 
have  for  the  most  part  been  developed  within  certain  specified  and 
limited  groups;  while  these  groups  themselves  have  taken  their  places 
in  the  framework  of  the  old  individualistic  system  of  relationships  with 
very  little  more  sense  of  social  solidarity  and  responsibility  than  the 
older  biological  units  possessed.  Within  the  groups,  the  individualistic 
philosophy  has  generally  been  superseded  by  something  more  adequate 
and  more  effective,  more  suited  to  actual  conditions;  in  the  hard  school  of 
experience  men  have  been  forced  to  learn  to  cooperate  with  one  another, 
to  stand  by  each  other  and  fulfill  their  mutual  duties.  Participation 
in  group  life  has  been  a  most  valuable  educative  process,  leading  through 
prolonged  self-discipline  to  a  very  real  sense  of  solidarity  and  reciprocal 
responsibility.  There  has  been  developed  a  group  spirit,  an  esprit  de 
corps,  a  set  of  group  standards  and  ideals  which  no  member  would  will- 
ingly violate.  Yet  between  groups,  in  the  relations  which  the  groups 
.  hold  to  one  another  and  especially  to  that  group  which  represents  the 
power  of  society  as  a  whole,  the  state,  just  as  in  the  further  relations  into 
I  ^  which  national  groups  enter  with  their  fellows,  there  has  been  developed 
V  little  corresponding  sense  of  a  larger  social  responsibility.  The  labor 
unionist  will  faithfully  subordinate  his  own  private  interests  to  the 
interests  of  his  union;  the  corporation  official  is  inspired  often  by  a  real 
devotion  to  the  company,  and  will  stand  by  it  through  thick  and  thin. 
But  of  neither  union  nor  corporation  can  it  be  said  that  it  is  actively 
aware  of  the  duty  which  it  owes  to  the  whole  in  which  it  functions/  So 
far  as  the  relations  between  groups  are  concerned,  modern  society  is  still 
conducted  upon  an  individualistic  basis;  and  though  the  exigencies  of  in- 
dustrial organization  have  enlarged  the  terms  in  the  older  theory  from 
the  single  employer  and  the  single  workman  to  the  great  corporation  and 
the  powerful  trade  union,  the  essence  of  the  relation  between  them  re- 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

mains  unchanged.     The  present-day  community,  despite  the  socialized 

aracter  of  its  industrial  structure,  is  still  endeavoring  to  function  upon 
the  basis  of  group-individualism. 

But  not  only  is  the  spirit  which  actually  obtains  in  the  manifold 
struggles  and  competitions  of  the  industrial  field  fundamentally  opposed 
to  the  needs  and  conditions  of  social  life;  of  late  years  that  spirit  has 
come  consciously  to  the  fore  in  the  writings  of  social  theorists,  and  both 
legal  philosophers  like  M.  Duguit  and  Mr.  Laski  and  economic  idealists 
like  the  syndicalists  and  the  guild-socialists  have  adopted  group-individ- 
ualism as  the  philosophy  which  is  to  solve  the  problems  of  social  organi- 
zation. Under  the  name  of  "pluralism"  the  tacit  assumptions  upon 
which  the  unionist  and  the  monopolist  have  been  acting  have  been 
rationalized  into  a  theory  of  society  and  opposed  to  the  tenets  of  state 
socialism  or  collectivism.  A  brief  analysis  will  make  clear  the  funda- 
mental similarity  between  this  social  theory  and  the  older  conception  of 
individualism. 

The  essence  of  the  old  individualism  which  reigned  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  is  briefly  as  follows:  Society  is  composed  of  a  number  of 
equal  units,  each  separate  and  distinct  from  all  the  others,  each  endowed 
with  a  private  and  individual  will  or  purpose  to  further  his  own  ends,  each 
indifferent  to  the  ends  of  all  the  rest.  These  units  possess  on.e  aud-oniy  v^ 
one  purpose  in  common,  the  desire  to  remain  free  from  interference  by  the 
otherunits.  ThiS'end  is Served  by  an  organization  caTTecTQie  State,  which, 
"however  it  may  have  originated,  at  present  embodies  this  general  will  or  / 
purpose  of,  first,  protecting  the  units  from  agression  from  outside  the 
community,  and,  secondly,  of  curtailing  with  blindfolded  and  impartial 
justice  the  activities  of  each  unit  in  such  a  way  that  no  one  will  be  en- 
croached upon  any  more  than  he  encroaches  upon  others.  Since  the 
function  of  the  state  is  fundamentally  to  limit  the  will  and  rights  of  each 
unit,  it  is  to  the  interests  of  the  units  that  the  state  function  no  more  than 
is  absolutely  necessary.  To  this  end  each  unit  preserves  against  the  state 
certain  rights;  that  is,  certain  powers  of  enforcing  its  will  upon  other 
wills  when  it  wills  something  not  prohibited  by  law.1 

Now  this  conception  makes  of  society,  not  a  whole  in  which  each  of  the 
parts  performs  its  own  function  smoothly,  but  an  aggregate  of  conflicting 
wills  whose  interests  are  all,  above  a  certain  minimum,  antagonistic. 
Over  against  these  individual  wills  is  placed  a  higher  will  of  the  state, 
to  restrain  them,  combat  them,  and  keep  them  within  bounds.  This 
higher  will  of  the  state  is  assumed  to  be  the  general  or  social  will;  not  the 
1  This  analysis  follows  in  general  the  lines  of  M.  Duguit's. 


\ 


io  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

will  of  all  the  members,  for  no  such  entity  can  possibly  exist,  but  the 
will  which  purposes  the  general  good.  Only  upon  such  an  assumption  can 
the  acts  of  the  state  hi  restraining  its  members  be  justified,  for  only 
t  %  in  order  to  achieve  the  general  good  have  they  surrendered  absolute  inde- 
^— pendence.  As  it  practically  works  out,  the  all-important  function  of 
determining  this  general  will  is  left  to  the  majority  which  can  enforce  its 
desires,  and  the  determination  of  the  will  of  the  majority  is  again  left 
to  those  powerful  and  interested  groups  who  are  willing  to  put  forward  the 
efforts  necessary  to  secure  success  in  a  modern  election.  Thus,  under 
color  of  the  fiction  (necessary  though  it  be  on  the  given  premises)  that 
the  acts  of  the  state  embody  the  real  will  of  all  the  people,  certain  power- 
ful groups  are  enabled  to  impose,  by  force  or  by  threat  of  force,  their  will 
and  interest  upon  their  fellows.  And,  theoretically  at  least,  the  larger  the 
minority  the  more  justification  does  the  state  have  in  employing  force  to 
uphold  the  majesty  of  the  law.  Such,  for  example,  was  the  theory  of  our 
Civil  War. 

^  /  j  The  modern  pluralists  recognize  this  situation,  that  sovereignty, 
which  is  the  power  to  make  the  other  fellow  do  what  you  want,  does  not 
reside  in  the  people  as  a  whole,  nor  in  the  majority,  nor  in  the  state, 
but  is  to  be  found  wherever  there  exists  the  power  to  enforce  the  will  of 
a  group.  Some,  like  Mr.  Laski,  seem  quite  satisfied  with  this  conclusion, 
and  regard  with  imperturbable  equanimity  the  reintroduction,  in  theory 
as  in  fact,  of  the  bellum  omnium  contra  omnes  of  Hobbes.  Others,  more 
disturbed  at  the  prospect  of  powerful  economic  groups,  each  with  special 
interests  and  with  the  power  to  enforce  them,  desire  a  federal  state  upon 
an  economic  and  industrial  basis,  overlooking,  perhaps,  how  a  divergence 
in  economic  interest  came  near  wrecking  hi  the  Civil  War  the  most 
successful  federal  state.  These  latter  thinkers  desire  a  state  which,  in  the 
words  of  Professor  John  Dewey,  as  one  of  the  many  organizations  func- 
tioning in  society,  shall  check  and  regulate  the  other  groups  and  preserve 
a  proper  harmony  between  them.  And  these  men  are  bringing  in,  to- 
gether with  their  Benthamite  passive  policeman  state,  the  whole  struc- 
•J  ture  of  the  individualistic  social  philosophy,  merely  substituting  therein 
f  f*  groups  for  single  human  beings. 

The  entire  system  is  there.  The  old  individualism  depended  upon  the 
primacy  of  self-interest  and  the  consequent  conflict  of  wills.  Now  while 
psychology  has  thrown  grave  doubts  upon  the  validity  of  this  as  a  univer- 
sal motive  with  the  human  being,  it  certainly  seems  as  though  groups 
which  acted  with  disinterested  benevolence  were  rare.  We  are  familiar 
with  the  "soulless  corporation";  and,  for  the  matter  of  that,  labor  unions 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility  n 

are  not  famed  for  the  generous  regard  which  they  show  either  to  their 
fellow  unions  or  to  those  dependent  upon  their  toil.  Nor  are  national 
groups  calculated  to  impress  by  their  disdain  of  their  own  interests.  In- 
deed ^experience  would  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  only  when  groups 
foundTheir  interests  clearly  and  unmistakably  identical,  as  with  unions 
engaged  in  a  common  struggle  against  their  employers  or  with  allied 
nations  in  wartime,  are  they  able  to  transcend  their  purely  individual 
aims.  Thus  strikes  are  commonly  praised  as  developing  solidarity 
amongst  labor,  and  the  recent  war  was  formerly  supposed  to  have  brought  "i 
the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers  to  a  mutual  brotherly  understanding. 
But  the  disappearance  of  more  petty  quarrels  hardly  compensates  for  the 
existence  of  struggles  of  such  magnitude. 


xste 

(Thi 


This  ^nnflir^   ftf  will,   thfi  ha^jfi  of  indJVJHiiftfern. 


other  elements  all  follow  logically.  It  is  again  necessary  to  bring  in  J 
some  organization  with  a  superior  will  and  power  to  enforce  harmony  / 
amongst  conflicting  groups.  .The  problem  becomes  once  more  the  en- 
forcing of  responsibility  from  above;  and  instead  of  our  harmoniously 
functioning  state  we  are  confronted  with  thejJternatwg^of ,  on  the  one 
hand,  a  bureaucratic  and  efficient  autocracy  wisely  but  firmly  keeping 
every  group  in  its  proper  place  and  necessarily  supported  by  a  strong 
military  force,  the  Prussian  ideal,  which,  curiously  enough,  seems  to  have 
been  approximated  in  present-day  Soviet  Russia;  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  a  weak  and  ineffectual  congress  merely  placing  the  stamp  of  legal 
approval  on  the  balance  of  power  produced  by  the  conflicting  groups 
themselves,  the  ideal  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  and  the  Germanic 
Confederation.  And  since,  as  the  pluralists  have  pointed  out,  there  do 
exist  in  an  industrial  society,  unlike  Russia,  innumerable  economic 
groups  which  possess  the  power  of  not  only  resisting  the  state,  but,  should 
self-defense  follow  its  usual  slippery  path,  of  becoming  predatory  upon 
society,  it  is  probable  that  the  second  alternative  would  in  practice  result. 
This,  then,  is  the  situation  to  which  social  thinkers  would  have  men 
look  forward;  strange  contrast,  indeed,  to  the  society  of  harmonious  coop- 
eration which  the  intricacy  of  the  modern  industrial  machine  demands! 
In  such  a  society,  where  every  group  were  free  to  place  its  individual 
interests  and  desires  above  the  welfare  of  the  community,  where  the  most 
powerful  and  the  most  strategically  located  unions  were  able  to  bring  the 
entire  nation  to  the  verge  of  starvation  to  effect  a  slightly  higher  rate 
of  remuneration,  the  delicate  organization  built  up  by  a  century  of  indus- 
trial growth  would  rapidly  disintegrate;  and  such  a  collapse  of  the  very 
bases  of  civilization  might  well  mean  the  extinguishing  of  everything 


12  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

which  man  has  prized  and  cherished  in  his  long  pilgrimage  through 
history,  if  indeed  it  did  not  presage  his  total  disappearance  from  the  face 
of  the  earth. 

Thus  modern  social  theory  has  indeed  performed  a  great  service  in 
pointing  out  the  changed  situation  which  the  industrialization  of  society 
has  brought  about.  It  has  shown  one-half  of  the  new  condition  which 

(functional  organization  has  effected;  overlooking  the  increased  need  of 
cooperation,  it  has  portrayed  in  striking  colors  the  growth  of  new  imperia 
in  imperio,  of  powerful  and  irresponsible  groups  within  the  state.  This 
is  a  fact  of  political  and  economic  life  which  assuredly  any  social  philos- 
ophy which  cares  to  commune  with  actual  conditions  must  assume  as 
part  of  the  data  with  which  it  has  to  work.  It  is  at  least  a  portion  of  that 
natural  basis  whose  disregard  has  led  previous  social  theory  to  become 
increasingly  unreal  and  unfruitful  of  solution  for  the  difficult  problems  of 

(social  organization.  But  when  it  goes  on  to  ask  men  not  only  to  recognize 
the  extent  of  group-individualism,  but  also  to  accept  it  as  permanent  and 
to  idealize  it  as  best  they  may;  when  it  asks  them  to  construct  a  new 
philosophy  extolling,  in  the  optimistic  spirit  of  Adam  Smith,  the  marvel- 
lous way  in  which  the  self-interest  of  the  various  groups  making  up  society 
works  together  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number,  or  deploring 
in  the  Ricardian  spirit  of  disillusionment  the  sad  but  inevitable  laws  of 
group  activity  which  necessitate  that  society  remain  a  bloody  field  of 
combat:  then  it  is  for  men  to  point  out  that  it  has  left  untouched  the 
primary  problem  of  social  organization,  and  confronts  in  silence  the 
demand  of  the  modern  industrial  system  for  a  society  in  which  the  same 
relations  of  functional  service  which  obtain  within  groups  shall  also  sub- 
L.sist  between  them.  It  has  after  all  made  little  or  no  advance  upon  its 
immediate  predecessor  toward  securing  that  harmonious  and  cooperative 
liberation  of  human  energies,  and  it  has  fallen  far  below  those  wondrous 
Greeks,  who,  despairing  perhaps  of  the  tumultuous  realities  of  political 
struggle,  were  yet  able  to  erect  on  high  for  the  inspiration  of  future  ages 
their  splendid  vision  of  what  the  ideal  state  should  be.  That  problem 
remains  for  the  modern  age,  as  it  remained  for  the  Benthamite  liberal,  as 
it  remained  for  the  political  thinker  of  whatever  age  or  clime;  and  hi  re- 
doubled insistence  it  presses  upon  the  world  today  as  the  problem  of 
securing  virtuous  individuals  and  virtuous  groups,  virtuous  in  the  fine  old 
Greek  sense  of  fulfilling  to  the  best  of  their  abilities  that  function  which  it 
is  theirs  to  perform  in  the  community,  and  hi  that  service  to  their  fellows 
of  developing  ever  new  sources  of  power  and  potentialities  of  spirit. 
To  one  who  with  an  unprejudiced  eye  surveys  the  industrial  havoc 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility  13 

which  the  war  spread  throughout  Central  and  Eastern  Europe,  and  who 
realizes  the  precarious  situation  in  which  even  the  Western  powers, 
England  and  France,  have  been  placed  as  a  result  of  the  interference  of 
relatively  external  causes  with  the  industrial  and  economic  structure 
that  has  grown  up  with  modern  society;! to  one  who  has  any  understand- 
ing of  the  forces  motivating  groups  of  labor  today,  and  realizes  that  it  is 
not  only  in  England  that  what  Mr.  Gleason  points  out  is  true,  that  the 
workers  care  much  more  about  other  ends  than  they  do  about  securing 
the  maximum  of  production  even  for  high  wages — that  Mr.  Laski  voiced 
much  more  than  a  half-truth  when  he  said  that  the  profit  motive  inspir- 
ing the  modern  industrial  system  seems  dangerously  near  to  breaking 
down — to  such  a  one  it  seems  entirely  within  the  range  of  possibility  that 
the  present  technique  of  industry — the  machine  technique  of  the  indus- 
trial revolution — might  itself  have  to  give  way  to  a  society  of  agriculture  .  / 
and  handicraft,  even  as  it  has  in  certain  localities  of  Central  and  Eastern 
Europe.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  average  member  of  Western 
civilization  finds  this  a  ludicrous,  a  ridiculous  prospect.  Only  a  lunatic 
could  possibly  doubt  the  inevitability  of  the  industrial  revolution  and  the 
machine  process  continuing  and  growing  till  the  earth  itself  is  extin- 
guished in  cosmic  blacknessj 

So,  indeed,  it  must  have  seemed,  while  the  barbarians  were  even  then 
at  their  very  gates,  to  the  citizens  of  that  proud  empire  they  worshipped 
as  Eternal  Rome.  But  it  was  not  the  incursion  of  the  Teuton  tribes  that 
extinguished  Hellenistic  civilization;  that  was  only  the  external  symptom 
of  a  long  process  of  internal  decay.  Who  can  say  whether  such  a  process 
be  not  even  now  at  work  in  our  society — our  society  which  but  recently 
ridiculously  elevated  its  hope  in  progress  into  a  cosmic  principle?  It 
might  surprise  the  self-complacent  member  of  Western  civilization  to 
realize  that  the  majority  of  the  human  race,  the  millions  of  China  and  of 
India,  do  not  today  accept  this  basic  axiom  of  the  West,  and  would 
greatly  rejoice  if  the  European  and  his  machines  should  disappear 
entirely  from  the  earth.  [Nay,  hi  the  very  heart  of  European  society  there 
are  great  numbers  who  would  rejoice  at  the  entire  overthrow  of  the 
machine,  which  to  them  stands  only  for  drudgery  and  servitude^ 

Samuel  Butler  depicted  in  his  Erewhon  a  society  which,  perceiving  that 
the  machine  had  become  its  master,  forthwith  rejected  it  entirely  in  favor 
of  more  "primitive"  habits  of  life.  In  the  Victorian  age  in  which  the 
work  was  penned  it  was  received  as  an  amusing  whimsicality.  But 
Butler  was  in  earnest,  and  there  are  those  today,  after  the  rude  shattering 
of  the  Victorian  faith  in  progress,  who  regard  his  words  as  somewhat 


14  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

prophetic.  But  it  appears  more  probable  that  if  such  an  unheard-of 
state  of  affairs  should  come  to  pass,  it  would  be  not  because  man  refused 
to  allow  the  machine  to  become  his  master,  but  because  he  proved  unable 
to  master  himself. 

It  will  do  no  harm,  and  it  may  be  productive  of  much  good,  for  men  to 
stop  to  ask  themselves  why  the  continuance  of  the  machine  process  is 
inevitable.  Assuredly  no  man  can  stop  it;  but  if,  as  the  apostles  of  prog- 
ress would  have  it,  such  mighty  forces  rest  on  the  lap  of  the  gods,  what 
knowledge  have  we  that  we  presume  to  know  the  inscrutable  minds  of  the 
divinities?  It  might  well  be  that  in  this  world  where  so  many  things  are 
born  and  run  their  course  and  die,  the  industrial  revolution  might  share 
the  common  lot,  and  have  even  now  advanced  far  in  its  old  age. 

Ah,  but  man  will  not  permit  it!  Man  will  control  his  destiny;  some- 
how he  will  conquer  and  find  his  way  out! 

Why?  Such  an  attitude  might  have  been  possible  ten  years  ago;  but 
this  false  optimism  was  irretrievably  shattered  by  the  war.  Many  and 
wise  men  foresaw  that  cataclysm,  and  strove  to  avert  it;  but  the  collective 
wisdom  of  mankind  proved  impotent  against  its  collective  passion  and 
folly.  The  cynic  can  today  plead  a  well-nigh  irrefutable  case.  Nor  does 
the  world  seem  to  have  learned  much  from  its  mistakes;  so  far  as  one  can 
judge  it  appears  content  to  proceed  in  the  same  old  muddle-headed 
fashion  to  a  repetition  of  its  disasters.  And  if  our  present  system  of 

II  machine  production  should  disappear,  it  is  at  least  an  open  question 
It  whether  humanity,  purified  and  made  clean  by  such  a  terrific  purge, 
J|  released  from  all  those  things  which  have  constituted  for  it  progress, 

x-might  not  enjoy  a  greater  measure  of  collective  well-being. 
Y        I  do  not,  however,  share  these  opinions,  nor  these  expectations, 
v  /       gloomy  or  joyful.    I  believe  that  the  machine  process,  when  properly 
made  the  servant  of  man,  is  an  inestimable  and  priceless  boon.    And 
A       I  believe  that  man  will  find  his  way  out  of  his  present  discontents  to  a 
^     larger  measure  of  social  well-being.    But  I  also  believe  that  if  a  way  out 
is  found,  it  will  be  found,  not  by  trusting  to  a  beneficent  providence, 
nor  yet  to  a  cosmic  process  of  evolution,  but  solely  through  the  patient 
and  persistent  application  of  human  intelligence  to  the  solution  of  the 
manifold  problems  facing  human  society.    And  I  believe  that  if  through 
any  reason  that  intelligence  slackens  in  its  application,  it  is  entirely 
possible  that  the  destiny  of  man  may  be  quite  different  from  that  con- 
templated by  the  optimistic  apostles  of  perfectibilitarianism. 

In  this  particular  and  specific  problem  of  the  securing  of  a  society 
whose  functioning  shall  not  tear  it  to  pieces,  whose  centripetal  shall  ^X 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility  15 

outbalance  its  centrifugal  tendencies,  no  one  contemplates  the  eventual 
avoiding  of  a  pluralistic  community,  or  the  reduction  of  social  life  to  a 

/  single-minded  adherence  to  a  single  purpose,  however  inclusive.  That 
might  indeed  be  a  desirable  end,  though  that  question  remains  highly 
dubious;  but  it  certainly  is  an  end  never  to  be  attained.  Mankind  is 
too  different,  too  richly  endowed  with  manifold  and  conflicting  tenden- 
cies, ever  to  make  possible  the  attainment  of  a  single-minded  society, 
or  ever  to  avoid  the  generous  complexity  of  its  variegated  interests  and 
desires.  Yet  the  disclaimer  of  any  such  aim  does  not  involve  the  si- 
multaneous rejection  of  any  possible  adjustment  between  conflicting  in- 
terests and  impulses.  To^conserve  individuality  it  is  not  necessary  to 
evoke  a  bellum  omnium  centra  omnes,  nor  to  preserve  initiative  is  it  req- 
uisite to  institute  a  state  of  complete  anarchy.  What  society  does  nee3\ 
is  sufficient  unity  of  purpose,  sufficient  harmonization  and  reconcilia-  :*\ 
tion  of  conflicting  interests,  to  enable  it  to  work  together  for  the  attain- 
ment of  those  varying  ends.  Conflicting  impulses  have  always  been  in  the 
world,  and  will  always  be;  but  in  the  old  agricultural  society  there  was, 
on  the  whole,  enough  of  common  purpose  to  hold  the  state  together  and 
prevent  its  disruption.  The  Great  Society  has  as  yet  hardly  achieved  this 
binding  principle;  and  it  needs,  intensely  and  profoundly  needs,  a  motive 

I  sufficient  to  cause  its  component  members  to  work  together  with  a  rea- 
sonable degree  of  efficiency  and  to  prevent  them  from  running  amuck 
and  bringing  the  whole  social  structure  toppling  down  upon  their  heads. 
The  examination  of  this  problem,  the  discovery  of  some  such  cohesive 
principle,  it  is  the  purpose  of  this  volume  to  undertake. 

There  are  two  general  modes  of  approach  to  the  problem,  and 
of  them  shed  much  light  on  the  conditions  necessary  for  a  solution. 
The  one  is  that  which  has  been  assumed  by  the  Hobbists  and  their  sym- 
pathizers: it  phrases  the  end  to  be  obtained  as  political  obedience,  and 
seeks  by  the  aid  of  force  and  penalties  imposed  by  the  state  to  create  a 
wholesome  respect  for  constituted  authority.  It  aims  to  secure  social  j 
coherence  through  a  sense  of  fear  engendered  by  a  firm  central  govern- 
ment. The  other  mode  of  approach  would  like  to  discard  fear  entirely 
as  the  basis  of  political  obligation,  and  seeks  rather  to  build  up  from 
the  bottom  a  habit  of  social  cooperation  resting  upon  consent  and  vol- 
untary performance  of  duty.  This  is  the  ideal  of  the  philosophical  an- 
archist, of  a  Godwin  or  a  Proudhon,  who  would  found  society  solely 
upon  the  basis  of  voluntary  associations;  but  it  is  also  the  ideal  hesita- 
tingly approached  by  Liberalism,  that  Liberalism  that  appeals  to  rea- 
son and  decries  the  exercise  of  compulsion.  The  one  method  empha- 


16  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

sizes  obedience,  the  other,  obligation;  the  one  aims  at  binding  society 
together  by  bonds  of  steel  applied  from  without,  the  other  at  fostering 
and  developing  within  society  itself  a  desire  and  a  will  which  shall  weld 
into  one  all  discordant  elements.  Obviously,  both  methods  have  under- 
lain all  states  up  to  the  present;  there  has  not  existed  one  which  was  not 
supported  by  a  measure  of  executive  force,  yet  likewise  there  has  ex- 
isted none  which  has  not  ultimately  rested  upon  the  passive  assent,  if 
not  the  active  consent,  of  its  members.  The  second  type  of  society, 
that  in  which  every  citizen  is  imbued  with  a  desire  to  act  wholly  in  ac- 
cord with  political  virtue,  is,  of  course,  ideally  preferable  to  a  society 

,  held  in  restraint  by  external  force;  every  Utopia  is  peopled  by  just  such 
virtuous  citizens.  Yet  somehow  actual  states  have  tended  to  resemble 
more  the  first  type;  men  have  needed  restraint  and  fear  to  hold  them 
in  check,  and  it  is  quite  futile  to  blame  faulty  conditions  and  arrange- 
ments for  the  failings  of  those  men  who,  after  all,  are  responsible  for 
producing  that  social  structure.  The  theorists  of  the  second  type  have 
been  almost  exclusively  idealists;  they  have  elevated  into  universal 
terms  what  they  desired  to  see  in  the  state.  Those  of  the  first  have  cor- 
respondingly been  political  realists,  aiming  solely  at  describing  com- 
munities as  they  are.  Rare  indeed  have  been  those  who  have  envisaged 

.  the  problem  as  one  of  education,^of  so  molding  social  machinery  that 
it  would  cultivate  a  spirit  of  active  cooperation  among  the  members  of 
the  state,  and  advance  gradually  from  enforced  to  voluntary  cohesion. 
The  answer  of  the  advocate  of  force  and  authority  to  the  particular 
problem  of  group  responsibility  facing  contemporary  society  is  simple. 
There  exist  powerful  groups  within  the  bosom  of  the  state,  too  power- 
ful to  be  extirpated.  Let  the  state  then  recognize  their  existence,  as  it 
does  not  at  present;  but  let  it  hold  them  to  strict  accountability  for 
their  actions.  Let  it  carefully  limit  and  define  the  fields  of  their  activity, 
and  proscribe  with  rigid  penalties  any  overstepping  of  the  legal  restric- 
tions it  imposes.  Let  it  place  stringent  regulations  about  the  monopoly 
and  extend  to  all  industries  the  power  enjoyed  now  by  the  Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission  over  the  railroads,  or  by  any  public  service 
commission  over  the  public  utilities  within  its  jurisdiction.  Let  it  also 
prohibit  strikes,  by  injunction  or  by  courts  of  compulsory  arbitration; 
and  let  it,  if  need  be,  call  out  the  troops  or  mobilize  the  strikers  in  case 
of  disobedience  of  the  government's  mandates. 
Upon  the  feasibility  of  this  solution  the  discussion  need  not  enter 

j  here.    Everything  put  forward  by  the  pluralists  has  been  evidence  of 

i  the  extreme  difficulty  the  modern  state  experiences  in  enforcing  its  will 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility  17 

against  functional  groups.  Unquestionably,  if  sovereignty  be  the  power 
to  force  others  to  do  your  will,  the  modern  trust  or  the  modern  trade 
union  certainly  possesses  a  considerable  measure  of  sovereignty;  and 
with  the  existence  of  many  such  imperia  in  imperio  within  its  jurisdic- 
tion the  industrial  state  is  apt  to  find  itself  in  the  plight  of  the  Cape- 
tian  kings  before  their  great  feudatories.  Mr.  Laski  is  undoubtedly 
right  in  saying,  "The  fact  is  that  a  unity  produced  by  terror  is  at  best 
but  artificial;  and  where  the  deepest  convictions  of  men  are  attacked 
terror  must  prove  ultimately  worthless."  l  The  most  absolutistic  gov- 
ernment can  endure  only  so  long  as  it  is  tolerated  by  its  subjects;  the 
aim  of  a  state  resting  primarily  upon  force  must  be,  so  far  as  possible, 
to  obtain  the  support  of  its  citizens.  If  the  modern  state  is  to  rely  upon 
its  police  power  to  secure  the  efficient  functioning  of  its  members,  it 
must  utilize  that  power  to  foster  habits  of  group  responsibility.  It 
must  endeavor  to  bring  home  to  the  component  groups  the  duty  they 
are  under  of  contributing  their  share  to  the  life  of  the  whole. 

Thus  even  the  rigid  authoritarian  faces  grave  difficulties  in  the  pur- 
suit of  his  solution  to  the  problem,  and  is  ultimately  forced  to  acknowl- 
edge  that  his  is  but  one  method  of  education  in  group  responsibility. 
And  the  measure  of  his  success  is  just  that  degree  in  which  the  educa- 
tive process  makes  unnecessary  the  use  of  force  to  compel  political  obe- 
dience. It  is  upon  this  common  ground  that  he  can  meet  the  advocate 
of  the  development  of  a  voluntary  sense  of  group  responsibility,  of  an 
attitude  of  mind  predisposing  toward  harmonious  cooperation  rather 
than  discordant  individualism. 

The  latter,  equally  with  the  authoritarian,  recognizes  the  necessity 
of  requiring  social  functioning  from  the  various  groups  upon  which  the 
community  depends;  but  he  believes  that  that  unity  can  come  to  pass  only 
when  there  has  grown  up  a  real  cohesive  force,  a  real  principle  of  social 
responsibility  permeating  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  state.  He  feels 
that  society  cannot  attain  that  smoothness  of  functioning  which  mod- 
ern industrial  organization  demands  and  without  which  it  cannot  con- 
tinue  until  the  component  groups  have  become  habituated  to  directing 
their  energies  not  in  purely  private,  but  also  in  social  channels.  He 
uses  force,  not  as  the  bond  which  is  to  prevent  the  disruption  of  the  en- 
tire system,  but  as  a  means  of  guiding  and  controlling  this  educative 
process.  With  Plato  he  holds  that  the  perfect  state  must  be  schooled 
in  self-discipline  until  its  parts  are  dominated  by  the  harmonizing  and 
cooperative  principle  of  Justice. 

1  Laski,  Authority  in  the  Modern  State,  p.  34. 


-^ 
) 
</ 


i8  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

In  so  recognizing  that  the  coercive  force  of  the  government  can  in  no 
sense  be  conceived  as  ultimate,  he  does  not  minimize  the  difficulty  of 
his  problem.  Rather  is  it  the  pure  authoritarian  who  assumes  a  too 
easy  solution  to  the  attainment  of  group  responsibility.  He  imagines 
that  injunctions  and  courts  of  arbitration,  laws  against  strikes  and  the 
mobilization  of  troops  can  of  themselves  provide  a  proper  lubrication 
for  the  industrial  machine.  He  believes  the  wise  government  to  be  that 
which  is  continually  proclaiming  in  strident  tones,  "Off  with  his  head!" 
The  advocate  of  educative  measures  perceives  clearly  the  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  such  an  attempted  solution;  but  he  also  sees  enormous  diffi- 
culties in  his  own  path.  He  looks  abroad  upon  society  today,  with  all 
its  warring  classes  and  groups,  its  pluralistic  purposes  and  its  indiffer- 
ence to  larger  responsibilities,  and  he  does  indeed  feel  the  magnitude  of 
the  task  before  him.  But  he  realizes  that  no  solution  will  stand  which 
is  built  upon  the  sand  of  military  power,  and  he  knows  that  the  future 
of  civilization  and  of  the  human  race  depends  upon  an  answer  being 
found.  Therefore  it  is  that  he  envisages  the  problem  in  terms  of  educa- 
tion  and  will,  of  building  up  those  habits  of  response  to  the  needs  of 
society  which  constitute  the  essense  of  political  virtue. 

The  obstacles  in  the  way  of  creating  and  fostering  this  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility are  great.  How,  for  instance,  is  it  possible  to  expect  that 
a  public  service  industry  (and  all  are  rapidly  approaching  this  category; 
he  is  wise  indeed  who  can  even  today  draw  the  line)  will  have  as  its  pri- 
mary aim  the  service  of  the  public,  when  it  has  been  created  and  is  con- 
trolled by  men  whose  motive  is  avowedly  private  profit?  And  if  it  is 
difficult  to  develop  a  sense  of  social  responsibility  hi  a  group  whose  func- 
tion is  directly  productive,  how  much  more  so  is  it  hi  the  case  of  the 
union,  where  social  responsibility  means  first  of  all  responsibility  to  a 
group  whose  interests  are  in  many  respects  fundamentally  opposed  to 
theirs!  Such  considerations  raise  the  further  question  of  whether  the 
solution  will  not  entail  fundamental  changes  hi  the  administrative  sys- 
tem of  modern  industry  that  its  productive  technique  may  be  preserved. 

Before,  however,  these  questions  can  be  even  intelligently  propounded, 
there  is  required  a  careful  examination  of  the  prevailing  conditions,  so- 
cial, economic  and  human,  from  which  any  solution  to  the  problem  must 
start.  There  are  many  evidences  that  society  is  at  present  dominated 
by  what  was  been  called  the  habit  and  attitude  of  group-individualism, 
and  the  task  is  to  change  this  attitude,  to  develop  out  of  it,  if  possible, 
a  truly  social  vision.  Such  a  change  in  attitude,  in  purpose,  in  philosophy, 
implies  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  possibilities  inherent  in  the  present 


The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility  19 

^situation,  and  of  the  causes  which  have  made  that  situation  what  it  is. 
What  conditions  have  led  to  the  present  dominance  of  the  habits  of 
group-individualism?  Is  this  the  sole  motive  underlying  the  action  of 
industrial  groups,  and  what  grounds  are  there,  in  their  past  history,  to 
suppose  that  any  other  can  be  made  prominent?  What  have  been  the 
conditions  that  have  militated  against  the  development  of  habits  of  so- 
cial responsibility? 

The  question  then  is  primarily  one  of  understanding  the  motives  of*v 
human  beings  in  the  industrial  machine,  and  of  so  ordering  conditions       jf 
that  these  motives  may  be  modified  and  turned  into  other  and  social     / 
channels.    What  are  the  springs  of  action  of  the  trade  unionist,  his  aims,  / 
his  desires,  his  beliefs,  his  theories?    What  conditions  have  produced 
them,  and  not  others,  in  his  life?    Why  is  he  not  commonly  predisposed 
to  look  beyond  his  own  group  in  his  policies  and  actions?    And  what  is 
there  hi  the  mind  of  the  trade-unionist  to  lead  one  to  suspect  that  under 
other  conditions  he  will  find  his  aim  in  cooperating  with  the  whole  body 
of  society  as  well  as  with  his  fellow  unionists? 

All  these  questions  necessitate  an  examination  of  the  motives  and  the- 
ories underlying  the  various  efforts  men  have  made  at  industrial  organi- 
zation, and  the  reaction  between  them  and  the  growing  economic  machine. 
Such  a  task  it  is  the  aim  of  the  succeeding  section  to  attempt,  always 
with  the  end  in  view  of  discerning  the  bearing  of  this  record  upon  the 
problem  which  the  last  section  will  endeavor  to  clarify.  With  this 
mind  it  is  proposed  to  examine  the  ideals  and  aspirations  which  have| 
lifted  the  workers  above  their  sordid  surroundings  and  held  out  to  them 
the  promise  of  a  better  day  to  come.  For  the  record  of  the  progress  of 
the  aims  and  purposes  of  American  labor  organizations  is  the  story  of 
repeated  attempts  of  certain  groups  to  bring  about  a  more  harmonious 
state,  and  of  their  repeated  failure  to  make  their  way  against  the  dead- 
ening grip  of  the  habits,  the  attitudes,  the  philosophy  whence  they 
themselves  sprang  and  which  dominated  the  life  of  the  nation  whose 
spirit  they  were  renouncing.  From  their  brief  moments  of  success  there 
can,  mayhap,  be  gleaned  hope  for  the  eventual  development  of  group 
responsibility  out  of  group  individualism;  from  their  manifold  failures 
there  can  be  discerned,  if  men  but  will,  those  elements  in  the  system  of 
organized  social  life  which  have  prevented  the  emergence  of  the  sense 
of  group  obligation  which  the  preservation  of  the  nation  from  disintigra- 
tion  demands.  J  Only  in  the  light  of  such  knowledge  of  the  wanderings 
of  the  human  spirit  can  man  approach  the  most  difficult  problem  of 
social  organization. 


PART  I 

THE  AIMS  AND  MOTIVES  OF  LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS  IN 
THE  UNITED  STATES 


2.  THE  PLACE  OF  SOCIAL  THEORY  AND  PROGRAMS  IN  THE 
AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

BEFORE  we  can  proceed  to  an  examination  of  the  theories  and  the  phi- 
losophy underlying  the  movement  of  the  American  workers  toward 
organization,  we  must  make  clear  just  what  we  mean  to  do  hi  such  a  proc- 
ess. In  what  sense,  indeed,  can  we  speak  of  any  particular  philosophy, 
any  particular  view  of  society,  as  claiming  the  allegiance  of  the  American 
working  man?  Onlookers  have  felt,  and,  as  a  perusal  of  the  columns  of  -, 
almost  any  of  our  metropolitan  journals  will  convince,  still  feel  today 
that  the  only  aim  of  labor  organizations  is  the  purpose  of  certain  agitators 
to  fill  their  own  pocketbooks  and  live  upon  the  fat  of  the  land.  Even 
those  who  realize  that  this  ideal  would  scarcely  appeal  to  the  thousands 
of  workmen  who,  assuredly  not  under  compulsion,  elect  to  undergo  the 
terrible  hardships  of  a  prolonged  strike  rather  than  to  continue  to  do 
an  honest  day's  work  for  generous  wages  in  a  model  and  hygienic  factory, 
are  prone  to  explain  the  motives  of  the  labor  movement  solely  in  terms 
of^reed  and  Ia7.ine.ss.  ,  In  what  sense,  then,  can  we  claim  that  the  actions 
of  labor  unions  are  governed  by  any  theories  or  preconceived  notions, 
or  have  their  basis  in  a  social  ideal  and  a  definite  plan  for  attaining  that 
end? 

In  the  first  place,  if  by  social  theory  we  understand  a  fully  elaborated, 
carefully  worked  out  and  scientifically  stated  explanation  of  the  present 
system  of  social  organization;  if  we  expect  a  detailed  Utopia,  graphically 
delineated,  an  apocalyptic  vision  of  the  good  tune  coming,  then  assuredly 
we  cannot  claim  that  any  such  system  is  to  be  discovered  animating 
American  labor;  though  there  have  indeed  been  individual  leaders  who 
have  worked  out  such  philosophies.  In  this  respect  America  differs  from 
most  European  countries.  Such  a  definite  Weltanschauung  is  to  be  dis- 
covered in  the  history  of  German  Social  Democracy;  in  Karl  Marx  the  ^. 
German  workman  discovered  not  only  the  inspired  prophet  of  the  new 
day,  but  even  an  authoritative  Bible  to  serve  as  a  guide  in  all  the  affairs 
of  economic  life.  To  this  day  those  who  owe  their  inspiration  to  Marx  r  / 
have  been  for  the  most  part  dogmatic  and  doctrinaire;  and  these  are 
which  have  never  been  imputed  to  the  Ajnericanjabor  movement. 
philosophy,  if  Ebikisaphy  it  has,  has  been  unsystematic,  fragmentary, 
and  hi  general  subordinated  to  the  economic  realities  o?  3aily  Hie. 


/ 


24  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Nor,  again,  if  by  the  social  theory  underlying  American  labor  we 
mean  any  one  habit  of  thinking,  any  one  set  of  mind  and  orientation 
which  can  be  traced  throughout  its  history  and  which  is  unchallenged 
today,  can  we  fairly  attribute  such  an  attitude  to  American  labor.  It  has 
been  dominated  by  various  aims  and  various  ideals  at  various  times  hi 
its  history,  and  even  at  the  same  period  there  have  always  been  con- 
flicting theories  and  programs  struggling  for  the  place  of  influence,  each 
called  forth  hi  response  to  the  needs  of  certain  specific  and  varying  situa- 
tions. Never  has  this  struggle  been  more  severe  nor  the  contesting 
theories  more  diverse  than  at  the  present  moment.  To  attempt  to  dis- 
cover any  single  theory,  any  single  thread  of  purpose  which  will  explain 
the  various  phases  through  which  labor  organization  has  passed,  is  to 
attempt  that  undue  simplification  which  is  always  a  falsification  of  the 
facts. 

If,  then,  we  can  look  neither  for  any  systematic  philosophy  nor  for 
any  one  set  or  habit  or  attitude  of  thought,  what  can  we  expect  to  find 
in  American  labor?  Has  it  had  no  ideals  beyond  the  immediate  aim  of 
securing  subsistence  and  avoiding  starvation?  Has  it  been  inspired 
solely  by  the  spirit  of  the  leader  who  recently  brushed  away  all  considera- 
tion of  the  social  consequences  of  strikes  and  of  soaring  prices  with  the 
j  succinct  answer, "  But  we  must  somehow  get  enough  to  live  on ! " 

We  can,  I  think,  answer  with  Hoxie:  "If  the  history  of  unionism 
seems  to  admit  of  any  positive  generalizations,  they  are  that  unionists 
have  been  prone  to  act  first  and  formulate  theories  afterward,  and  that 
they  have  acted  habitually  to  meet  the  problems  thrust  upon  them  by 
immediate  circumstances.  Everywhere  they  have  done  the  thing  which 
under  the  particular  circumstances  has  seemed  most  likely  to  produce 
results  immediately  desired.  Modes  of  action  which  have  failed,  when 
measured  by  this  standard,  have  been  rejected  and  other  means  sought. 
Methods  that  have  worked  have  been  preserved  and  extended,  the 
standards  of  judgment  being  always  most  largely  the  needs  and  experi- 

I  ences  of  the  group  concerned.    So  that,  prevailingly,  whatever  theory 
J  unionists  have  possessed  has  been  in  the  nature  of  group  generalization, 

*  slowly  developed  on  the  basis  of  concrete  experience. "  1 

"The  hopes  and  fears  (of  the  wageworker)  center  primarily  about 
such  matters  as  employment,  wages  and  hours,  conditions  of  work,  modes 
of  remuneration — hi  short,  the  most  vital  concerns  which  immediately 
touch  his  present  and  future  well-being — and  the  economic,  ethical,  and 
juridical  conditions,  standards,  and  forces  that  practically  determine  these 
1  Hoxie,  Trade  Unionism  in  the  United  States,  p.  34. 


Social  Theory  in  The  American  Labor  Movement  25 

matters;  and  his  mind  focusses  on  the  problem  of  living  as  presented  in 
these  terms.  In  his  attempt  to  comprehend  and  solve  this  problem  he 
also  develops  some  sort  of  social  viewpoint — an  interpretation  of  the 
social  situation  as  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  his  peculiar  experi- 
ences and  needs — and  a  set  of  beliefs  concerning  what  should  and  can 
be  done  to  better  the  situation,  especially  as  it  bears  upon  the  conditions 
of  living  which  he  faces. ' ' *  X  V 

Now,  in  so  far  as  Hoxie  implies  that  the  social  philosophy  of  the 
unions  has  grown  up  gradually  and  experimentally,  and  has  ever  re- 
mained a  flexible  instrument  serving  the  purposes  of  those  who  have 
formulated  it,  he  is  undoubtedly  right.  But  he  overlooks  sever 
important  considerations.  In  the  first  place^this  process  of  gradi 
development  occurs  in  the  minds  of  the  leaders,  amongst  that  srm 
group  of  men  to  wnom  American  labor  must  look  with  gratitude  for 
progress  it  has  made.  But  for  the  mass  of  the  workers  there  does  not  / 
arise  this  interpretation  of  social  forces  and  this  program  for  action.  / 
\  The  history  of  labor  is  the  history  of  prophets,  preachers  of  glad  tidings — 
prophets  who  derive  their  importance  indeed  from  the  conditions  which 
made  their  message  acceptable,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  their 
appeals  were  met  by  their  fellow  workers — but  prophets  nevertheless, 
men  like  Skidmore  and  George  Henry  Evans,  like  Sylvis  and  Trevel- 
lick,  like  Stephens  and  Powderly,  like  Steward  and  Gun  ton,  like  Gompers 
and  Haywood — men  who  had  caught  a  certain  vision  of  better  things 
for  the  toilers  and  who  went  about  the  country  gathering  men  around 
their  standards.  The  story  of  American  labor  is,  in  one  sense,  a  story 
of  organizers  and  of  agitators,  a  story  of  small  groups  of  men,  inspired 
with  an  ideal,  who  were  able  to  collect  around  them  disciples  and  be- 
lievers in  the  new  gospel  of  organization.  And  every  preacher  must 
have  some  definite  ground  on  which  to  appeal,  every  prophet  some  in- 
spiration from  on  high,  some  message  of  deliverance.  It  was  this  ne- 
cessity of  finding  something  around  which  to  rally,  of  justifying  one's 
own  notions  hi  the  light  of  constant  criticism  and  hostility  from  without, 
that  led  the  unions  to  the  formulation  of  their  platforms,  as  it  led  the 
early  church  to  the  definition  of  its  creed. 

Then  again,  the  unions  were  driven  Jo  their  theories  by  the -necessity  j  /> 
of  defending  themselves  before  the  manifest  hostility  of  the  employers 
and  of  the  courts  of  law.  Thus  the  early  unionism  emphasized  the  ami 
of  securing  to  its  members  the  opportunity  to  prepare  themselves  for 
the  many  duties  of  good  citizenship,  and  the  later,  in  its  struggle  for 
1  Hoxie,  Trade  Unionism  in  the  United  States,  p.  56. 


26  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  eight-hour  day,  endeavored  to  prove  the  advantage  such  a  change 
would  bring  to  the  employer  himself.  Nor  is  this  apologetic  development 
of  social  theory  an  altogether  hypocritical  piece  of  hoodwinking  the  un- 
sophisticated. For,  as  will  be  seen,  theories  first  developed  in  self-justi- 
fication, and  perhaps  remaining  mere  camouflage  for  a  number  of  un- 
ionists, have  by  the  sheer  force  of  their  appeal  become  the  means  of 
inspiring  their  partisans  with  that  very  social  vision  whose  lack  they  C) 
were  developed  to  conceal.  For  this  is  but  another  phase  of  the  response 
.  the  unions  have  ever  been  ready  to  make  to  an  honest  appeal  to  their 
*\  sense  of  social  duty. 

X.  ,*j  But  the  most  important  factor  which  Hoxie's  view  seems  to  neglect 
115  the  impossibility  of  isolating  the  unions  from  the  society  in  which 
they  are  placed.  After  all,  those  men  who  developed  the  theories  of 
unionism  were  Americans  before  they  were  unionists,  and  upon  political 
and  social  matters  they  thought  very  much  as  did  their  compatriots. 
Schooled  in  the  ideas  and  thoughts  that  found  permanent  form  in  the 
great  documents  left  by  the  Fathers,  accustomed  to  hear  them  ex- 
pressed in  every  political  campaign  and  on  every  occasion  of  patriotic 
festivity,  to  say  nothing  of  the  lessons  they  learned  under  whatever 
teachers  they  may  have  attended,  the  men  of  the  last  century  who  as- 
sisted at  the  birth  of  unionism  were  already  imbued  with  a  full-fledged 
political  and  social  system  long  before  they  approached  the  particular 
problems  awaiting  them  as  craftsmen. 

It  was  not  a  question  with  them,  therefore,  of  gaining  some  sort  of 
social  viewpoint  in  their  economic  struggles;  it  was  rather  a  question  of 
the  modification,  slowly  and  painfully  under  the  influence  of  bitter  dis- 
illusionment, of  those  theories  which  they  had  come  to  regard  as  sacro- 
sanct. Indeed,  it  is  impossible  to  read  the  records  of  the  early  attempts 
at  organization  without  feeling  that,  far  from  believing  they  were  pro- 
pounding new  doctrines,  the  unionists  believed  rather  that  they  alone 
were  upholding  the  traditions  of  pure  Americanism;  and  they  called 
upon  their  compatriots  to  assist  them  in  returning  to  the  Constitution 
and  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  whose  message  they  felt  had 
somehow  been  lost  sight  of. 

The  story  of  the  development  of  the  theories  underlying  labor  organiza- 
tion,  then,  is  not  so  much  one  of  the  first  emergence  of  ideas  about  social 
questions  as  it  is  of  the  formation  of  a  new  sense  of  distinctness  from 
the  rest  of  the  community  and  special  solidarity,  in  theory  at  least,  with 
a  certain  group.  It  is  in  the  process  of  growing  group  consciousness  that 
habits  of  mind  and  thought,  group  ways  of  looking  at  problems,  be- 


Social  Theory  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  27 

came  engrafted  upon  those  conceptions  which  the  entire  community 
held,  and  built  up,  by  gradual  accretion  rather  than  by  any  conscious 
rejection  of  the  dominant  philosophy  and  spirit,  an  individual  and 
characteristic  mental  attitude  peculiar  to  the  group. 

It  is,  indeed,  this  singularly  American  habit  of  the  workers  of  re- 
garding themselves  as,  individually,  primarily  citizens  of  the  United; 
Slates  and  only  secondarily,  in  so  far  as  their  interests  are  concerned,  t 
as  trade  unionists  or  even  as  workingmen,  that  goes  far  to  explain  the 
/  contrast  between  the  American  and  the  British  labor  movements.  In 
England  society  is  stratified  from  top  to  bottom;  every  man,  even  though 
he  be  able  to  pass  easily  from  class  to  class,  is  nevertheless  always  keenly 
conscious  of  to  just  what  class  he  happens  at  any  particular  moment 
to  belong.  The  workingman  generally  has  a  distinctive  garb  by  which 
he  can  be  recognized,  even  in  places  of  public  amusement;  he  is  al- 
ways aware  of  the  gulf  separating  him  from  the  "black-coated"  clerk 
whose  actual  economic  status  may  be  below  his  own.  He  is  not 
a  British  citizen  who  happens  to  be  engaged  in  manual  labor;  he  is 
first  and  foremost  a  British  workingman.  Moreover,  his  economic 
status  and  his  trade  organization  had  been  practically  developed  be- 
fore he  was  enfranchised  and  given  to  feel,  in  that  vivid  sense  which 
only  a  feeling  of  personal  responsibility  can  induce,  that  he  was  func- 
tioning as  a  citizen.  He  was  an  ardent  unionist  long  before  he  was 
permitted  to  think,  in  the  characteristically  British  expression,  that  he 
had  "a  stake  in  the  country";  and  when  this  latter  favor  was  conferred 
upon  him  it  was  specifically  as  a  class  that  he  was  enfranchised.  He 
already  had  leaders  whom  he  trusted  and  followed,  and  he  could  decide, 
with  considerable  assurance  that  his  decision  would  become  really 
effective,  to  throw  his  forces  in  with  whatsoever  party  he  chose,  as  a 
body.  And  when  he  became  convinced  that  neither  of  the  existing  parties 
would  achieve  his  ends,  he  was  able  to  form  a  party  for' himself  which 
easily  attracted  to  it  the  organized  workers.  In  a  word,  the  British 
workingman,  has  from  the  beginning  felt  in  politics  as  he  has  in 
dustry,  and  has  consistently  shown  himself  class-conscious. 

In  America  it  has  been  very  different.  Until  quite  recently  there 
existed  very  little  social  stratification  in  the  United  States.  At  its 
foundation  the  American  republic  recognized  no  separate  classes  or 
interests,  and  truly,  as  will  be  seen,  there  was  in  fact  little  social  differ- 
entiation. The  lowest  member  of  an  Eastern  community  was  always 
aware  that  in  a  very  few  years  he  could  if  he  would  make  his  fortune  in 
the  West.  He  was  enfranchised  before  the  industrial  revolution  had 


hich 

itish  1  £ 

i  in- 


28  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

even  made  its  appearance,  and  had  experienced  all  the  vicissitudes  of 
active  political  life  long  before  he  was  called  upon  to  organize  as  a  crafts- 
man. Indeed,  labor  organization  generally  took  place  just  that  he  might 
retain  the  indispensable  economic  prerequisites  to  a  proper  fulfilling  of 
his  proud  position  as  American  citizen.  While  in  England  the  ballot 
has  always  been  a  means  for  attaining  the  especial  aims  of  organized 
labor,  in  America  men  have  organized  generally  to  preserve  all  those 
things  which  are  symbolized  by  the  ballot.  Hence  it  has  been  that, 
despite  the  urgent  appeals,  time  and  again,  on  the  part  of  their  leaders, 
American  workmen  have  never  given  up  the  proud  position  of  being 
able  to  feel  that  they  are  in  some  real  way  arbiters  of  the  nation's 
destiny  on  the  important  issues  they  see  everywhere  discussed  in  the 
press,  for  the  more  humble  sense  of  being  out  to  secure  their  own 
group  interests.  American  politics,  even  when  it  has  been  most  under 
the  influence  of  moneyed  interests,  has  always  preserved  a  distinctly 
national  character;  divisions  have  generally  been  along  lines  of  methods 
of  achieving  the  general'  welfare  of  the  whole  country,  not,  as  in  Europe, 
on  the  basis  of  'real  conflicting  interests.  And  labor  leaders  have  never 
been  able  to  deprive  for  long  the  unionist  of  his  inalienable  right  to  vote 
as  an  American  citizen  for  one  of  the  two  great  parties. 

This  determination  to  keep  political  and  industrial  matters  separate 
does  not  imply  any  syndicalistic  distrust  of  legislative  action.  The  un- 
ionist has  always  been  the  first  to  turn  to  Congress  and  the  state  legis- 
latures to  secure  a  remedy  for  his  ills;  for  him  bourgeois  parliaments 
hold  no  terrors.  But  it  is  always  like  any  other  citizen,  through  a  lobby, 
or  through  the  acceptance  of  a  labor  plank  by  one  of  the  two  major 
parties,  that  he  has  desired  to  gain  his  political  ends.  Not  as  labor,  not 
as  a  special  group  with  special  interests  antagonistic  to  other  sections 
of  the  community,  but  as  any  other  business  enterprise  whose  prosperity 
directly  affects  the  prosperity  of  the  nation,  the  unionist  has  demanded 
that  he  be  considered.  The  regulation  and  exclusion  of  immigration, 
for  instance,  has  always  been  argued  on  the  analogy  of  any  tariff  pro- 
tection for  infant  industries.  The  Pennsylvania  steel  manufacturers 
ask  that  British  steel  be  heavily  taxed;  just  so  do  unionists  demand 
the  exclusion  of  the  Chinese. 

This  separation  of  political  and  industrial  interests  has  had  two  re- 
sults. First,  it  has  undoubtedly  led  to  a  strong  sense  of  national  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  individual,  a  national  feeling  which  manifests  itself 
in  innumerable  unexpected  ways,  perhaps  strangest  of  all  in  the  in- 
tolerance of  dissenting  minorities;  and,  secondly,  and  for  our  purposes 


Social  Theory  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  29 

more  important,  there  has  been  a  refusal  to  regard  the  political  or  na- 
tional interest  called  forth  in  the  exercise  of  the  franchise  as  in  any  way 
extending  also  to  economic  life.  English  unions,  organized  in  a  political 
party,  are  coming  to  recognize  the  part  they  play  in  the  national  life, 
and  the  social  duties  incumbent  upon  them,  just  because  they  may  at 
any  moment  be  entrusted  with  the  carrying-on  of  the  government,  of 
acting  with  the  responsibility  of  the  national  well-being  in  view;  and 
this  political  and  social  responsibility,  being  in  nowise  separated  from 
their  economic  function,  easily  passes  back  into  industrial  life,  so  that 
they  can  consider  political  action  as  a  means  of  obtaining  their  individual 
economic  interests,  or  direct  economic  action  as  a  means  to  a  purely 
political  and  national  end.  But  American  unionists  have  felt  that  their 
responsibility  _tO-the  community  and  to  its  well-being  was  entirely  ex- 
hausted in  their  acts  as  individual  voters,  and  conversely  that  trade 
union  activities  were  not  in  the  province  of  the  government  that  per- 
sisted in  unwarrantedly  intermeddling  with  them. 

For  these  reasons  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  recognize 
large  part  which  tn\  national  political  philosophy  has  played  in  all  labor 
union  theories;  and  to  conceive  the  successive  and  simultaneous  inter- 
pretations of  social  institutions  and  their  corresponding  suggestions  for 
change,  not  as  separate  and  isolated  manifestations  of  group  conscious- 
ness, but  as  so  many  variations  upon  the  main  body  of  American  social 
theory.  But  in  thus  emphasizing  the  central  core  of  agreement  that  has 
persisted  thoughout  American  labor  history,  we  must  not  blind  our 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  there  always  have  existed  very  real  differences 
between  unionists  and  the  rest  of  the  community,  and  between  the  con- 
flicting types  of  unionism  itself,  differences  which  from  small  beginnings 
with  the  increasing  group  spirit  are  accentuated  until  they  may  indeed 
work  a  transformation  in  the  entire  social  theory  of  the  group.  These 
differences  betray  themselves  in  expressions,  terms,  concepts,  in  the 
habit  of  thought  and  attitude  of  mind  they  reveal.  There  are  certain 
beliefs  which  to  the  average  unionist  appear  axiomatic,  which  he  meets 
constantly  in  the  addresses  of  his  officers  and  in  the  columns  of  his  trade 
paper,  and  which  would  certainly  be  challenged  by  those  outside  union 
circles.  These  principles  form  the  ultimate  rules  upon  which  he  bases 
his  actions;  to  prove  to  him  that  it  is  desirable  to  follow  a  certain  course 
it  is  only  necessary  to  show  that  it  is  based  upon  one  of  these  deeply 
rooted  principles.  Most  workers  would  be  unable  to  explain  the  rea- 
sonings upon  which  they  are  based;  but  if  pressed  they  would  probably 
be  able  to  give  some  kind  of  justification.  And  the  more  intelligent 


30  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

among  the  leaders  would  be  sure  to  be  ready  with  complete  justification 
of  all  the  group  ways  and  habits,  just  such  a  plausible  and  convincing 
apologia  as  John  Mitchel  wrote  in  his  admirable  Organized  Labor. 

Moreover,  the  union  furnishes  an  admirable  forum  for  the  intelligent 
workman  to  develop  his  ideas  through  discussion  and  argument.  It  is  so 
rarely  in  the  life  of  the  laborer  that  there  is  an  opportunity  for  him  to 
display  his  intellectual  powers  that,  if  machine  drudgery  has  not  en- 
tirely quenched  the  rational  spark  and  led  him  to  seek  diversion  in  the 
movies  or  the  dance-halls,  he  welcomes  his  union  as  the  one  opportunity 
to  find  an  intellectual  outlet.  He  displays  a  sometimes  really  astonish- 
ing knowledge  of  economic  and  social  theory,  a  knowledge  which  would 
put  to  shame  most  middle-class  business  men,  and  if  young  he  is  always 
prone  to  challenge  the  methods  and  aims  of  the  older  leaders.  Hence 
there  is  wrought  out  in  shop  and  in  meeting  a  compromise  between  the 
theories  of  the  radicals  and  the  wisdom  born  of  the  long  and  hard  ex- 
perience of  the  leaders,  whom  responsibility  and  disillusionment  with 
human  nature  have  often  transformed  from  men  radical  in  their  day  to 
conservatives.  There  is  always  going  on  this  intellectual  struggle  be- 
tween the  government  and  the  opposition,  and  unless  the  government 
is  able  to  justify  itself  in  theory  as  in  achievement  it  is  apt  to  succumb 
to  those  who  offer  a  new  and  hitherto  untried  but  appealing  remedy  for 
the  old  evils.  Moreover,  the  ranks  of  the  leaders  are  constantly  being 
recruited  from  these  younger  men;  they  are  elected  largely  on  the  basis 
of  what  they  can  promise  in  theory  and  in  new  aim,  and  they  are  suc- 
cessful in  proportion  as  their  views  prove  sound  in  practice. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  actions  of  the  leaders  are  nearly  always  based  on 
considerations  much  more  theoretical  than  those  of  the  men  in  following 
them.  On  the  basis  of  well  thought  out  theories  they  devise  slogans 
and  rules  of  action  which  are  taken  over  by  the  rank  and  file  and  be- 
come the  principles  guiding  them  in  their  everyday  dealings  with  their 
employers.  Sentiments  are  thus  enunciated  in  convention  and  in  the 
preambles  to  constitutions  and  programs  of  action  which  may  never  be 
understood  by  the  majority  of  the  unionists,  and  which  yet  are  the  real 
foundation  of  many  of  their  methods  and  objectives.  The  reason  for 
their  insertion  may  even  be  entirely  forgotten,  and  with  the  rise  of  new 
ways  of  thinking  they  may  be  expunged;  yet  when  first  they  were  in- 
serted they  truly  represented  vital  currents  in  the  workers'  philosophy. 

Take,  for  example,  that  assertion  so  common  in  all  constitutions  and 
programs  which  have  come  down  practically  unchanged  from  the  eight- 
ies and  nineties,  that  the  interests  of  the  workers  are  one  with  those  of 


Social  Theory  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  31 

their  employers.  Few  unionists  today  believe  that;  they  have  forgotten 
entirely  the  very  real  reasons  which  led  the  framers  of  those  constitutions 
to  insert  that  clause,  and  probably  attribute  it  to  a  desire  to  mollify  the 
employers.  Their  philosophy  is  now  entirely  different;  yet  during  the 
eighties  the  philosophy  of  Ira  Steward  and  George  Gunton,  whose 
very  names  would  probably  mean  little  to  the  present-day  worker,  and 
of  which  this  is  but  one  phase,  played  a  tremendous  part  in  molding 
those  principles  and  axioms  upon  which  trade  unionism  until  very  re- 
cently has  entirely  depended.  No  policy  is  so  prominently  identified 
with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  as  that  of  the  eight-hour  day; 
yet  very  few  realize  the  fact  that  only  by  understanding  Steward's 
theory  can  we  understand  the  slogan  which  has  gained  thousands  of 
recruits  to  the  Federation  standard: 
\ 

"Whether  you  work  by  the  piece 

Or  work  by  the  day, 
Decreasing  the  hours 

Increases  the  pay." 

In  answering,  then,  our  question,  in  what  sense  can  we  speak  of  a 
philosophy  underlying  American  labor,  we  must  endeavor  to  steer  a 
middle  course  between  those  who  see  one  simple  set  of  theories  as  the 
all-explaining  principle,  and  those  who  regard  the  movement  as  a  mere 
impulsive  and  generally  unintelligent  response  to  certain  inherent  in- 
stincts, the  action  of  men  who  obey  their  innate  tendencies  first  and 
then  later  rationalize  their  impulses  with  a  theoretical  explanation.  On 
either  hypothesis  an  intelligent  understanding  of  the  spirit  back  of 
American  labor  is  impossible;  but  if  anything  it  makes  matters  the  more 
unintelligible  to  treat  unionism  solely  as  the  product  of  economic  con- 
ditions  reacting  upon  inherited  instincts.  Out  of  the  ground  supplied 
by  such  forces  thefe"~have  grown  conscious  aims  and  ideals,  conscious 
attempts  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  social  organization  from  the 
peculiar  standpoint  of  the  underdog;  and  these  have  in  their  turn  given 
us  that  struggle  of  conflicting  philosophies  which  marks  the  field  of 
labor  today^  It  is  with  these,  thenT^that  we  are  concerned:  with  these 
intellectual  clarifications  of  purpose  developed  in  the  labor  movement 
and  controlling  its  activities  and  methods,  with  those  theories,  formulated 
by  leaders,  which  have  been  seized  upon  by  the  rank  and  file  and  have 
become  actually  efficient  in  society,  and,  most  of  all,  with  those  ideals 
which,  however  submerged  and  obscured  in  the  exigencies  of  daily 


'II 


32  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

struggle,  have  nevertheless  remained  as  the  objectives  for  which  the 
workers  are  striving. 

If  our  view  be  correct,  we  have  in  this  gradual  evolution  of  social 
theories  the  record  of  the  educative  process  to  which  labor  has  been 
disciplining  itself;  we  have  the  growing  consciousness  by  groups  of  their 
function  in  society  and  their  responsibility  for  its  performance.  If  this 
process  seems  disheartening,  if  the  primacy  of  group  interests  over  social 
interests  appears  at  times  too  ingrained  to  promise  aught  of  value  or 
hope  for  the  future,  let  us  not  forget  that  just  so  do  individuals  develop: 
the  egotistic  and  self-centered  adolescent  is  undergoing  the  necessary 
process  of  individuation  preliminary  to  his  later  development  of  real 
moral  character.  Let  us  then  regard  these  plans  and  programs,  this 
union  of  selfish  motives  with  generous  ideals,  in  the  same  sympathetic 
spirit  hi  which  we  would  regard  the  self-education  of  a  youth  in  the 
school  of  life;  and  let  us  endeavor  to  penetrate  into  those  mysteries  which 
are  so  often  hidden  from  the  man  himself,  into  those  underlying  as- 
sumptions and  conceptions  which  he  is  continually  revising  with  added 
experience. 


3.  THE  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PHILOSOPHY 
OF  DEMOCRACY 

BEFORE  we  can  intelligently  consider  those  variations  upon  the  funda- 
mental core  of  social  philosophy  peculiar  to  early  American  theory,  it 
is  necessary  to  gain  a  clear  notion  of  what  that  Hftrnin^^rncr  philosophy 
was.  At  first  blush  it  seems  a  comparatively  easy  task  to  discover  those 
underlying  attitudes  and  conceptions,  those  theories  of  the  nature  and 
purpose  of  social  organization,  which  made  up  the  national  philosophy 
in  the  first  days  of  the  Republic.  When  asked  what  the  United  States 
then  preeminently  stood  for,  and  what  were  its  ideals  and  practices, 
there  are  few  now,  as  there  were  few  then,  who  could  not  confidently 
answer,  "Why,  the  characteristic  American  ideal,  the  peculiar  con- 
tribution of  the  United  States  to  the  social  experience  of  the  world,  is 
Democracy" — and  some,  perhaps,  focussing  their  attention  on  the 
contrast  between  early  conditions  and  later  developments,  might  be 
tempted  to  add,  "pure  democracy."  Some,  indeed,  with  social  and 
economic  as  well  as  political  facts  in  view,  would  probably  hasten  to 
add  that  the  American  spirit  was  primarily  self-reliant  and  individualistic. 

Now  it  is  very  well  to  answer  "Democracy"  or  "Individualism,"  but 
such  vague  and  indefinite  terms  hardly  satisfy  our  purposes.  Democ- 
racy is  one  of  those  comfortable  concepts  which,  on  being  applied  to  a 
given  set  of  conditions  or  a  new  proposal,  while  adding  considerably  to 
the  aura  of  approbation  surrounding  it,  scarcely  furnishes  much  in- 
tellectual illumination  and  clarity.  When,  for  instance,  we  are  told  in 
turn  that  France,  drawing  upon  the  period  of  her  great  Revolution,  is 
inspired  by  the  true  principles  of  democracy;  that  only  in  England  and 
the  English  tradition  of  representative  government  and  liberty  is  de- 
mocracy to  be  found;  that  democracy  is  so  nearly  identical  with  the 
capitalistic  industrial  system  that  no  one  can  be  true  to  the  democratic 
constitution  of  America  without  giving  capitalism  hearty  support; 
that  the  only  democracy  in  the  world  is  to  be  found  in  the  Russia  of 
Lenin;  that  to  discover  a  democratic  nation  it  is  necessary  to  return  to 
the  happy  days  of  the  thirteenth  century;  and  finally,  that  democracy 
exists  at  its  best  in  China;  it  certainly  seems  that  "Democracy"  is  more 
a  term  of  laudation  and  praise  than  a  definition  of  any  principle  with  a 
discoverable  extension  and  intention.  Whether  this  be  so  or  no,  whether 


34  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

there  be  any  "essence  of  democracy"  or  not,  is  hardly  pertinent  to  the 
present  investigation;  but  it  is  most  clearly  our  duty  to  draw  distinctions 
in  this  somewhat  amorphous  mass  of  material,  to  endeavor  to  delimit 
and  describe  the  exact  philosophy  pertaining  to  American  experience, 
and  then,  calling  it,  if  we  will,  "Democracy,"  to  pick  out  those  elements 
which  render  it  peculiar  to  the  particular  time  and  place  under  con- 
sideration. What  did  " Democracy"  mean  for  those  men  who  first 
started  labor  organizations  in  this  country,  and  for  their  compatriots? 
Before  we  can  hope  to  point  out  the  especial  and  peculiar  meaning  it 
came  to  have  for  the  workers  we  must  answer  this  more  general  question. 

Excluding  all  those  conceptions  of  democracy  which  have  developed 
out  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  older  notions,  and  all  purely  laudatory 
applications  of  the  term  to  conditions  quite  innocent  of  the  proud  dis- 
tinction placed  upon  them,  it  is  possible  to  point  to  a  certain  body  of 
opinions,  a  certain  mass  of  doctrines  and  theories,  which  arose  in  Western 
European  civilization  toward  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
First  in  England,  then  in  America,  and  finally  in  France  men  developed 
these  principles  into  a  theory  of  social  organization  and  a  social  ideal 
which  amongst  Utopias  has  enjoyed  the  rather  dubious  distinction  of 
having  been  more  nearly  realized  than  any  other.  It  is  within  this  com- 
paratively limited  field  that  we  may  confine  ourselves,  and  endeavor  to 
point  out  those  particulars  in  which  American  democracy  is  differentiated 
from  the  contemporaneous  philosophy  of  both  England  and  France. 

It  was  in  England  that  this  eighteenth  century  democracy  was  born, 
in  the  England  primarily  of  the  parliamentary  revolutions  of  the  preced- 
ing age;  and  it  achieved  its  theoretical  defense  in  the  writings  of  John 
Locke.  This  English  democracy  was  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  theory  of 
social  organization,  although  it  did  enshrine  a  social  ideal;  it  was  rather 
a  practical  expedient  for  getting  along  with  a  traditional  and  slightly 
faded  but  eminently  respected  organization  of  society.  Its  two  princirjal 
features,  liberty  and  representative  government,  had  indeed  both  been 
developed  primarily  to  check  and  render  innocuous^  a  self-seeking  execu- 
Jtrve.  No  one  thought  seriously  of  changing  that  government;  such  a 
proposal  would  have  been  sacrilegious,  and  even  such  an  iconoclast  as 
Cromwell  had  hardly  attempted  it.  His  half-hearted  efforts  met  with  no 
success.  The  problem  was  rather  how  to  keep  it  from  interfering  with  the 
affairs  of  country  gentlemen  and  city  merchants;  and  the  happy  expedient 
of  diverting  its  attention  to  the  management  of  the  uncivilized  portions  of 
the  globe  had  hardly  been  put  into  effect.  Therefore  Englishmen  were 
occupied  mainly  with  building  walls  about  themselves  to  prevent  the 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy        35 

king's  men  from  coming  too  close;  and  this  enforced  fortification  natu- 
rally kept  off  other  intruders  as  well.  The  spirit  of  this  English  liberty  is 
well  contained  in  the  old  principle,  "Every  Englishman's  home  is  his 
castle  " ;  and  once  he  has  withdrawn  into  his  private  premises  nor  king  nor 
peasant  can  enter  against  his  will.  The  great  documents  securing  British 
liberty,  from  Magna  Charta  down,  have  contained,  not  principles  of 
government,  but  guarantees  of  good  behavior  and  promises  of  forbear- 
ance from  the  government. 

And  the  most  effective  of  these  guarantees  was  representative  govern- 
ment. Get  control  of  the  king's  purse  and  let  him  have  an  allowance  only 
during  good  behavior,  and  you  have  cornered  him.  He  can  do  no  more 
harm;  you  can  even  pick  out  his  officials  for  him,  and  they  will  be  doubly 
powerless.  It  does  not  even  matter  who  carries  on  the  government;  safe 
within  your  castle  you  can  with  equanimity  watch  the  squabbles  of  those 
who  have  undertaken  to  keep  the  king  in  check,  confident  that  while  they 
will  be  strong  enough  to  encounter  the  king's  men  they  will  still  be  weak 
enough  through  their  constant  quarrels  to  fear  to  attack  your  walls. 

Such  then  were  the  democratic  elements  which  England  contributed: 
an  insistence  on  the  rights  and  liberties  of  every  man  to  build  a  castle 
(if  he  could  find  the  money),  and  a  genial  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  the 
castle  owners  to  keep  the  government  from  becoming  too  officious  and 
interfering  and  to  divert  its  attention  to  the  other  side  of  the  world.  They 
were  scarcely  counsels  of  perfection,  nor  yet  the  ideal  way  of  getting 
along  together;  but  they  had  the  pragmatic  advantage  that  they  worked 
and  kept  the  castle-owners  so  busy  that  they  were  content  to  let  less 
fortunate  individuals  amass  the  requisites  for  starting  buildings  of  their 
own;  which  after  all  was  as  much  as  could  well  be  expected. 

French  democracy  was  entirely  different.  It  was  no  expedient  for  get- 
ting along  with  tradition;  it  was  rather  an  apocalyptic  vision  of  the 
millennium,  an  assertion  that  all  that  is  is  illusion  and  wrong  and  that 
by  concentration  on  the  mystic  signs  it  will  vanish  and  leave  in  its 
place  reality.  And  this  concentration  certainly  did  produce  a  startling 
change,  rather  to  the  surprise  of  its  own  advocates:  for  it  blew  off  the 
top  of  society  and  released  such  an  immense  amount  of  energy  that  it 
spread  its  lava-streams  on  all  sides.  Just  as  the  characteristic  feature  of 
British  democracy  was  castle-building  against  encroachments  of  any  sort, 
so  that  of  the  French  was  this  hurried  pushing  up  of  men  on  all  sides. 
Where  the  Briton  withdrew  within  his  shell,  the  Frenchman  rushed  out  of 
his  and  endeavored  to  capture  by  force  majeure  the  government  itself. 
The  Briton  cared  little  who  was  on  top  so  long  as  he  was  undisturbed;  the 


( 

36  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Frenchman  wanted  to  be  on  top  himself.  The  watchwords  of  the  Revolu- 
tion were  "EgalitS,"  "I'll  be  as  good  as  you,"  and  " Fraternite,"  "Come 
on,  brothers,  let  us  rise  together."  Liberty  itself  no  longer  retained 
its  English  meaning  of  "You  keep  off!"  It  became  transmuted  into 
the  right  of  equal  suffrage,  something  quite  alien  to  the  English  mind. 
The  Frenchman  was  happy  to  be  thrown  into  prison  if  he  were  only  sure 
that  he  had  freely  elected  his  gaoler.  Perhaps  the  attitude  toward  the 

I  army  forms  as  suggestive  a  contrast  as  any.  The  Briton  had  a  demo- 
cratic army  if  he  were  free  to  stay  out  of  it;  the  Frenchman,  if  he  and  all 
his  fellows  were  forced  into  it  in  one  great  brotherhood  of  equality. 

American  democracy  bears  little  resemblance  to  either  the  French  or 
,  the  British  doctrine.  The  fundamental  difference  is  that  whereas  in 
Europe  democracy  was  a  philosophy  of  revolt,  a  Utopian^cry  for  some- 
!  thing  better,  the  writing  in  universal  terms  of  what  was  first  and  foremost 
Van  imperative,  in  America  it  was  indigenous  and  of  the  soil.  It  was  not  a 
clarion  call  for  a  new  social  order,  but  rather  the  idealization  of  an  exist- 
ent situation.  The  doctrines  of  equality  and  liberty  seized  hold  of  the 
Frenchman's  heart  because  all  about  him  he  saw  inequality  and  oppres- 
sion; they  struck  the  American  as  eminently  sane  and  reasonable  because 
they  coincided  so  closely  with  the  society  in  which  he  lived.  Or,  to  put 
the  contrast  in  another  way,  the  French  developed  their  democracy  as  an 
instrument  in  the  revolt  against  feudalism,  while  the  Americans  left  the 
old  feudalistic  society  to  shift  for  itself,  came  to  a  virgin  land,  and  devel- 
oped their  democracy  as  a  justification  for  what  they  had  already  done. 
England  invented  the  theory  as  a  practical  expedient;  America  was  an 
enterprise  founded  on  that  theory,  which  necessarily  gave  birth  to  other 
elements  in  the  erecting  of  a  totally  new  social  order;  and  France,  gazing 
enviously  upon  England  and  America,  tried  to  remake  its  ancient  insti- 
tutions on  the  new  model. 

In  analyzing  American  democracy,  it  is  convenient  to  adopt  the  French 
formula  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity,  which  received  its  classic 
American  statement  in  the  words,  "All  men  are  created  free  and  equal.' V 
In  England  this  would  have  been  received  as  a  palpable  untruth;  in 
France,  as  a  witty  paradox  needing  metaphysical  justification;  but  in 
America  it  seemed  axiomatic,  ijhe  two  most  striking  features  of  Ameri- 
can life  were  freedom  and  equality ;  never,  perhaps,  has  a  society  existed  in 
which  there  was  a  more  equal  distribution  of  both  worldly  and  intellectual 
goods,  nor  in  which  the  individual  was  by  the  necessities  of  his  position  as 
a  pioneer  in  a  new  land  thrown  more  upon  his  own  resources.^  This 
equality  was  no  political  abstraction,  no  theory  upon  which  a  constitution 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy       37 

might  be  based;  it  was  a  fact,  a  datum,  with  which  all  political  organiza- 
tion and  theorizing  had  to  begin.  Likewise,  this  liberty  was  no  well 
thought  out  doctrine  as  to  the  social  advantages  of  allowing  every  individ- 
ual to  follow  his  own  self-interest;  it  was  also  a  fact,  a  condition  and  a 


habitj 


Tms  approximate  equality  of  social  conditions  in  the  United  States 
was  what  struck  all  visitors  to  the  country.  De  Tocqueville,  so  late 
as  1831,  was  so  impressed  that  he  began  his  great  work,  Democracy  in 
America,  with  the  words:  "  Amongst  the  novel  objects  that  attracted  my 
attention  during  my  stay  in  the  United  States,  nothing  struck  me  more 
forcibly  than  the  general  equality  of  condition  among  the  people.  I 
readily  discovered  the  prodigious  influence  which  this  primary  fact 
exercises  on  the  whole  course  of  society;  it  gives  a  peculiar  direction  to 
public  opinion,  and  a  peculiar  tenor  to  the  laws;  it  imparts  new  maxims  to 
the  governing  authorities,  and  peculiar  habits  to  the  governed. 

"I  soon  perceived  that  the  influence  of  this  fact  extends  far  beyond 
the  political  character  and  laws  of  the  country,  and  that  it  has  no  less 
empire  over  civil  society  than  over  the  government;  it  creates  opinions, 
gives  birth  to  new  sentiments,  founds  novel  customs,  and  modifies  what- 
ever it  does  not  produce.  The  more  I  advanced  in  the  study  of  American 
society,  the  more  I  perceived  that  this  equality  of  condition  is  the  fun- 
damental fact  from  which  all  others  seem  to  be  derived,  and  the  central 
point  at  which  all  my  observations  constantly  terminated."  * 

De  Tocqueville  goes  on  to  account  for  this  equality  of  condition. 
America  was  first  colonized  by  men  who  had  no  notion  of  superiority  over 
each  other.    In  New  England  the  colonists  were  all  of  the  same  social  \ 
class,  and  were  bound  together  by  the  common  tie  of  religious  persecu-  \ 
tion.    In  the  other  colonies,  the  main  incentives  to  emigration  were 
poverty  and  misfortune,  and  these  soon  destroy  all  pretensions  at  superi-  j 
ority  in  rank.    Moreover,  whatever  of  social  distinction  was  transported  ' 
across  the  sea  soon  vanished  amidst  the  necessary  conditions  of  existence 
in  the  new  country.   There  was  in  the  New  England  colonies  no  room  for 
men  who  lived  upon  the  toil  of  others;  the  poverty  of  the  soil  demanded 
that  every  man  who  could  should  cultivate  it  in  order  to  make  a  living  for 
the  community. 

In  those  states  where,  as  in  New  York,  the  land  had  formed  the  basis 
for  a  colonial  aristocracy,  the  revision  of  the  inheritance  laws  during 
the  Revolutionary  period  and  the  abandonment  of  the  English  principle 
of  primogeniture  soon  broke  up  the  large  holdings  and  prevented  the  con-  \ 
1  De  Tocqueville,  Democracy  in  America,  Century  Co.,  p.  i. 


38  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

tinned  dominance  of  certain  families;  by  the  time  of  De  Tocqueville  only 
two  of  the  patroons  were  left.  But  far  more  important  even  than  the 
equal  inheritance  laws  was  the  presence  of  constant  supplies  of  new  and 
unappropriated  land  to  the  westward,  to  which  any  one  forced  down  in 
the  struggle  on  the  seaboard,  or  any  younger  son  who  did  not  receive  the 
old  farm  or  was  not  needed  to  till  it,  could  always  escape  with  the  confi- 
dence of  himself  becoming  independent  in  a  very  few  years.  America 
stood  preeminently  for  equality  of  opportunity;  there  was  no  one  who 
could  not  by  his  labors  become  the  equal  of  any  other  in  the  community. 
There  was  no  American  lower  class,  no  peasantry  or  proletariat;  for  all 
who  hi  a  European  country  would  have  been  forced  into  such  a  class,  had 
hi  this  country  the  opportunity  always  crying  out  to  them  to  go  west  and 
make  their  fortunes.  This  was  the  true  influence  of  the  frontier  on 
American  society;  by  affording  an  outlet  to  any  surplus  population  it 
preserved  the  essential  equality  of  condition. 

The  West  was  constantly  in  danger,  however,  of  expropriation; 
throughout  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  a  constant  struggle  to  keep  out 
speculators  and  land-grabbers  who  would  speedily  have  made  prevail  in 
America  the  same  conditions  as  in  Australia,  where  the  feudal  estates  of 
the  ranchmen  kept  the  population  crowded  into  overgrown  urban  centers 
and  reintroduced  into  a  comparatively  sparsely  peopled  land  in  an  even 
more  exaggerated  form  the  problems  of  Europe.  There  is  no  labor  pro- 
gram during  the  last  century  which  does  not  include  as  an  important 
feature  of  its  aim  the  opening  of  the  public  lands  of  the  West  to  all  on 
equal  terms  and  the  rooting  out  of  all  special  holders,  be  they  speculators 
or  railroads.  The  importance  of  this  factor  in  the  bringing  about  of  the 
essential  equality  of  American  democracy  can  scarcely  be  overesti- 
mated. 

Moreover,  the  equality  of  American  lif e  did  not  mean  merely  a  general 
level  of  wealth  and  a  common  standard  of  living;  it  meant  also  a  remark- 
able similarity  of  abilities  and  function.  Equality  does  not  in  any  sense 
necessarily  imply  identity  or  likeness;  the  employees  of  a  great  industry 
might  well  be  equal  in  the  sense  of  receiving  equal  wages  and  an  equal 
participation  in  the  control  of  the  works  while  their  peculiar  functions 
remained  most  diverse  and  called  for  the  most  varying  degree  of  skill. 
But  in  America  there  was  not  this  differentiation  and  division  of  function. 
The  colonists  were  overwhelmingly  agriculturalists;  they  were  all  farmers 
who  depended  to  a  remarkable  extent  solely  upon  their  own  efforts  for  all 
the  goods  they  needed.  Every  man  did  everything  that  had  to  be  done 
for  himself;  from  his  dwelling  to  his  clothing  he  made  all  that  he  required 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy        39 

upon  his  own  farm.  And  every  farmer  developed  a  characteristic,  hard- 
headed,  Yankee  shrewdness,  an  ability  to  meet  all  the  exigencies  of  life 
himself,  a  knack  at  penetrating  to  the  heart  of  any  difficulty,  no  matter 
what  the  field.  Hence  arose  the  general  persuasion  that  any  man  was  as 
good  as  any  other  for  any  job,  a  feeling  quite  natural  and  perhaps  quite 
justified  in  those  conditions  when  it  was  just  that  ability  and  jack-of-all- 
trades  talent  which  was  developed  from  birth,  but  a  feeling  quite  alien  to 
a  society  where  ninety-nine  per  cent,  for  instance,  can  gaze  with  wonder 
upon  the  strange  and  alien  skill  displayed  in  swinging  a  pick-axe. 

Never,  perhaps,  was  intelligence  and  all  around  ability  so  equally 
developed;  never  was  there  such  justification  for  believing  that  all  men 
are  born  equal. 

It  must  not,  of  course,  be  supposed  that  this  general  social  equality 
brooked  no  exceptions.  There  was  always  the  South  and  its  plantations 
to  point  to,  and  the  moneyed  interests,  the  merchants  and  bankers,  of  the 
towns.  It  was,  in  fact,  precisely  upon  these  lines  that  in  the  early  days 
of  the  Republic  parties  were  formed;  and  the  party  representing  those 
elements  which  were  not  participants  in  the  general  equality  actually 
formulated  the  constitution  and  erected  the  national  government.  But 
this  party  was  always  a  minority;  its  prominence  was  due  solely  to  its 
leaders,  and  when  these  disappeared  from  the  scene  the  democratic 
elements  swept  triumphantly  into  power.  The  complete  collapse  of  the 
Federalists  before  the  Jeffersonian  Democracy  and  its  heir  of  Jackson's 
day  indicates  the  extent  to  which  society  was  built  upon  this  egalitarian 
basis.  And  those  principles  which  originally  arose  out  of  the  conditions  of 
New  England  and  were  kept  ever  warm  by  the  frontier  soon  penetrated 
even  into  the  different  strata  of  the  South.  But  this  scarcely  concerns  us, 
for  it  was  in  the  North  and  West  that  labor  organizations  arose,  and  in  the 
North  and  West  society  was  fundamentally  equal.  It  required  a  war  to 
break  up  the  landed  aristocracy  of  the  South,  but  as  the  door  of  opportu- 
nity was  kept  wide  open  to  every  aspirant,  the  moneyed  interests  of 
the  North  were  continually  changing  in  personnel. 

The  theorists  of  the  Jeffersonian  Democracy  recognized  clearly  this 
dependence  of  democratic  institutions  upon  a  real  social  equality.  Thus 
John  Taylor,  of  Caroline  County,  Virginia,  in  his  pamphlet  An  Inquiry 
into  the  Principles  and  Tendencies  of  Certain  Public  Measures,  in  1794, 
assailed  the  pet  scheme  of  the  Federalists,  the  United  States  Bank,  as 
subversive  of  the  democratic  principles  upon  which  the  government  was 
founded.  "A  democratic  republic,"  he  says,  "is  endangered  by  an  V 
immense  disproportion  in  wealth.  In  a  state  of  nature,  enormous 


40  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

strength  possessed  by  one  or  several  individuals  would  constitute  a 
monarchy  or  aristocracy — in  a  state  of  civilization  similar  consequences 
will  result  irom  enormous  wealth.  .  .  .  The  acquisitions  of  honest 
industry  can  seldom  become  dangerous  to  public  or  private  happiness 
whereas  the  accumulations  of  fraud  and  violence  constantly  diminish 
both."  And  Jefferson  himself  regarded  with  horror  any  increase  of 
wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  few  individuals  or  a  single  class. 

Thus  there  was  a  very  real  equality  of  intellect  and  of  possessions  in 
the  early  republic;  just  as  striking  is  the  actual  habit  of  liberty.  The 
colonists  had  left  England  schooled  in  the  British  tradition  of  liberty, 
of  curtailing  the  powers  of  the  government  and  allowing  it  only  a  certain 
definite  and  circumscribed  field  in  which  to  act.  They  had  left  largely 
out  of  a  desire  to  get  away  from  a  government  which  was  interfering  too 
much  with  them.  Their  traditional  theories  of  the  function  of  govern- 
ment and  the  primary  importance  of  guaranteeing  their  persons  and 
property  against  its  actions  were  only  enhanced  by  the  long  struggles  with 
the  royal  governors  culminating  in  the  Revolution,  and  the  lapse  into  the 
executive  weakness  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation  shows  clearly  the 
feelings  of  the  majority  upon  the  evils  of  too  great  governmental  effi- 
ciency. The  fact  that  their  oppressors  had  been  no  alien  monarch  or 
foreign  power,  but  Englishmen  like  themselves,  only  made  them  all  the 
more  distrustful  of  placing  authority  in  any  one's  hands. 

Joined  to  this  general  traditional  predilection  for  liberty  were  the 
conditions  under  which  they  were  living.  The  farmer  is  the  man  who 
comes  least  of  all  into  contact  with  the  agencies  of  organized  society,  and 
the  Americans  were  not  only  nine- tenths  of  them  farmers  but  for  the  most 
part  actual  pioneers,  dwellers  in  lonely  cabins  where  they  could  scarcely 
look  to  either  governmental  aid  or  restraint.  Habits  of  independence  and 
self-reliance,  of  following  their  own  desires  and  impulses  without  inter- 
ference, were  bred  in  them  by  the  experience  of  a  lifetime.  For  them, 
doing  what  they  pleased  in  so  far  as  it  did  not  encroach  upon  their 
neighbors'  liberty  was  equivalent  to  almost  unlimited  control  of  their 
action;  for  there  were  few  ways  in  which  they  could  encroach  upon  the 
freedom  of  neighbors  miles  away.  The  government  scarcely  touched 
them  at  all;  for  the  frequent  meetings  in  which  they  came  together  to 
arrange  all  matters  of  common  interest  might  be  an  association  of  men  for 
an  important  purpose,  but  it  certainly  was  not  government  in  the  tradi- 
tional British  sense,  That,  they  were  nearly  always  fighting:  it  meant 
unpleasant  things  like  taxes  for  the  king,  and  might,  indeed,  vanish 
entirely  out  of  their  lives  without  leaving  any  regret.  To  many  it  must 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy       41 

have  seemed  as  though  the  Revolution  had  been  fought  primarily  to  get 
rid  of  government. 

This  general  feeling  and  attitude  was  the  basis  of  American  liberty.  / 
It  was  a  conception  far  different  from  that  reasoned  liberalism  of  Victor-  l 
ian  England  that  held  that  the  most  harmonious  society  was  achieved 
through  allowing  every  man  to  follow  his  own  inclinations.  This  was  a 
theory  developed  to  justify  the  methods  of  rising  capitalists;  the  former 
was  a  temper  of  mind  which  needed  not  to  justify  itself.  It  was  a  temper 
transmuted  into  theory  through  the  conception  of  " natural  rights":  < 
that,  in  the  doing  of  which  men  instinctively  felt  they  should  be  free  from 
meddling,  became  endowed  with  the  quasi-legal  quality  of  inalienable 
" right."  That  which  men  had  always  done,  it  became  ipso  facto  their 
"right"  to  do;  having  long  lived  pretty  much  without  interference  they 
insensibly  came  to  feel  that  such  was  their  natural  "right."  Thus  in  its 
origin  the  conception  of  a  "  right"  is  intensely  conservative,  an  appeal  to 
traditional  custom.  To  become  revolutionary  it  must  first  become  reac- 
tionary. It  must  go  back  of  present  custom  to  an  assumed  past  custom 
now  fallen  into  desuetude.  That  is  precisely  why  some  conception  of  a 
primitive  "state  of  nature"  is  necessary  as  the  traditional  time  in  which 
men  were  allowed  to  do  what  they  now  desire  to  do.  "Natural,"  in  the 
phrase  "natural  rights,"  in  France  meant  "rational,"  but  in  America,  to 
a  far  greater  extent  than  one  might  suppose,  it  preserved  its  characteris- 
tically English  sense  of  "habitual."  Right  dwelt  in  that  middle  region 
between  custom  and  recognized  law;  partaking  somewhat  of  the  nature  of 
both,  it  stretched  so  far  back  into  the  past  that  it  quite  easily  came  to  be 
felt  that  "rights"  were  not  only  customs  crowned  with  the  halo  of 
immemorial  antiquity,  but  had  even  existed  for  men  before  there  had 
been  any  organized  society  at  all.  This  interpretation  had  in  its  favor 
precisely  those  elements  which  made  the  Roman  j us  gentium  or  natural 
law  so  attractive.  It  provided  a  methodology  for  introducing  ethical 
criticism  of  legal  institutions  which,  in  common  law  especially,  were 
assumed  to  be  impervious  to  change.  By  seizing  upon  recognized 
"rights"  it  became  possible  to  deduce  therefrom  further  privileges 
which  should  be  granted  to  the  individual  that  he  might  exercise  those 
rights,  and  this  process  could  go  on  until  the  conflict  of  rights  resulted 
in  a  deadlock. 

Thus  those  habits  of  liberty  and  independence  which  the  primitive 
and  undeveloped  state  of  the  country  had  instilled  into  the  minds  of 
the  American  farmer  and  pioneer  were  transmuted  first  into  rights  le- 
gally recognized  and  finally  were  hypostasized  as  eternal  and  inalien- 


42  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

able  possessions  of  the  individuals.  Once  raised  above  the  level  of 
custom  they  became  sacrosanct,  and  could  be  appealed  to  as  final  au- 
thority by  any  man  who  found  it  to  his  interest  so  to  do. 

One  of  the  most  firmly  established  of  these  rights  was  that  of  private 
property,  for  here  custom  and  tradition  had  been  strongest.  In  the 
words  of  Samuel  Adams,  "The  security  of  right  and  property  is  the 
great  end  of  government.  Such  measures  as  tend  to  render  right  and 
property  precarious  tend  to  destroy  both  property  and  government."  1 
In  a  society  where  property  depended  upon  the  personal  exertions  of 
individuals  in  clearing  and  cultivating  land,  and  was  always  associated 
with  the  actual  labor  of  the  owner;  in  a  society  where  any  one  could  ac- 
quire it  for  the  work  it  involved,  and  consequently  where  everyone  did 
own  property,  the  right  of  property  was  erected  upon  the  firmest  of 
bases.  As  De  Tocqueville  says,  "In  America,  the  most  democratic  of 
nations,  those  complaints  against  property  in  general,  which  are  so  fre- 
quent in  Europe,  are  never  heard,  because  in  America  there  are  no  pau- 
pers. As  every  one  has  property  of  his  own  to  defend,  every  one  recog- 
nizes the  principle  upon  which  he  holds  it."  2  And  in  another  passage, 
obviously  based  directly  on  American  observation,  he  practically  iden- 
tifies democracy  with  the  equal  and  general  distribution  of  private  prop- 
erty. "  I  am  aware  that,  amongst  a  great  democratic  people,  there  will 
always  be  some  members  of  the  community  in  great  poverty,  and  others 
in  great  opulence;  but  the  poor,  instead  of  forming  the  immense  majority 
of  the  nation,  as  is  always  the  case  in  aristocratic  communities,  are  com- 
paratively few  in  number,  and  the  laws  do  not  bind  them  together  by 
ties  of  irremediable  and  hereditary  penury.  .  .  . 

"Between  these  two  extremes  of  democratic  communities  stand  an 
innumerable  multitude  of  men  almost  alike,  who,  without  being  exactly 
either  rich  or  poor,  are  possessed  of  sufficient  property  to  desire  the 
maintenance  of  order,  yet  not  enough  to  excite  envy.  Such  men  are  the 
natural  enemies  of  violent  commotions;  their  stillness  keeps  all  beneath 
them  and  above  them  still,  and  secures  the  balances  of  the  fabric  of 
society. 

"Not,  indeed,  that  even  these  men  are  contented  with  what  they 
have  got,  or  that  they  feel  a  natural  abhorrence  for  a  revolution  in  which 
they  might  share  the  spoil  without  sharing  the  calamity;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  desire  with  unexampled  ardor  to  get  rich,  but  the  difficulty 
is  to  know  from  whom  riches  can  be  taken.  The  same  state  of  society 

1  Merriam,  History  of  American  Political  Theories,  p.  62. 
a  De  Tocqueville,  I,  p.  312. 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy       43 

which  constantly  prompts  desires,  restrains  these  desires  within  neces- 
sary limits;  it  gives  men  more  liberty  of  changing  and  less  interest  in 
change."  * 

This  widespread  distribution  of  property  in  America  and  the  conse- 
quent general  belief  in  the  right  of  property  contrast  strongly  with  mod- 
ern English  democracy.  When  the  working  classes  were  about  to  be 
enfranchised  in  1867,  Lord  Shaftesbury  warned  the  Conservative  party 
who  were  letting  down  the  bars  that  the  English  worker  did  not  believe 
in  the  sacred  right  of  private  property  and  would  not  respect  it.  Ex- 
perience has  fully  justified  his  warning.  British  workers,  never  having 
possessed  any  property  to  speak  of,  allow  those  who  do  to  retain  their 
possessions  only  on  tolerance;  hence  while  nationalization  and  other 
schemes  of  expropriation  of  the  landed  and  moneyed  interests  of  Great 
Britain  appeal  very  naturally  to  British  Labor,  they  are  still  entirely 
alien  to  the  ways  of  thought  of  Americans  brought  up  in  the  tradition 
of  small  individual  holdings.  Nothing  can  be  more  important  in  study- 
ing American  labor  organizations  than  to  recognize  that  their  conserva- 
tism is  the  product  of  the  very  traditional  equal  distribution  of  prop- 
erty which  they  exist  to  restore. 

Thus  those  habits  of  independence  and  liberty  naturally  engendered 
in  the  primitive  society  of  the  colonies,  fortified  by  the  long  struggle 
against  governmental  authority,  received  their  legal  sanction  in  the 
various  bills  of  rights  attached  to  the  Federal  and  State  constitutions 
shortly  after  the  Revolution,  and  took  their  place  in  the  social  philos- 
ophy of  democracy.  Based  on  deep  instincts  and  sentiments  rather 
than  on  theoretical  deductions  from  experience,  this  American  liberty 
was  able  to  resist  the  changed  conditions  of  industrialism  much  longer 
than  the  more  rational  liberalism  of  England  simply  because  it  was  so 
irrational;  and  Bryce  could  say  in  1880,  "So  far  as  there  can  be  said  to 
be  any  theory  on  the  subject,  in  a  land  which  gets  on  without  theories, 
laisser  oiler  is  the  orthodox  and  accepted  doctrine  in  the  sphere  of  both 
Federal  and  State  legislation."  2 

We  have  thus  analyzed  the  American  conceptions  of  equality  and  of 
liberty;  it  remains  to  consider  whether  we  find  any  exemplification  of 
the  third  traditional  ingredient  of  democracy,  fraternity.  What  this 
meant  to  the  Frenchman  is  clear.  It  was  that  brotherhood  of  arms,  of 
soldiers  battling  side  by  side  to  defend  their  newly  erected  institutions, 
that  flaming  spirit  of  nationalism  which,  called  into  being  by  the  tocsin 

1  De  Tocqueville,  II,  p.  421. 

2  Bryce,  American  Commonwealth,  II,  p.  421. 


44  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

of  alarm  at  foreign  invasion,  carried  French  grenadiers  to  every  corner 
of  Europe,  and  took  the  new  gospel  to  the  sands  of  Egypt,  the  plat- 
eaus of  Spain,  and  the  steppes  of  Russia.  Compounded  of  idealistic 
humanitarianism  and  the  French  yearning  for  la  gloire  mtiitaire,  it  over- 
threw the  complacent  cosmopolitanism  of  the  Enlightenment,  and 
proved  one  of  the  most  potent  forces  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

There  was  no  such  nationalistic  spirit  in  America.  Even  the  patriot- 
ism of  the  Revolution  was  purely  defensive,  and  the  jingoes  of  1812 
were  unable  to  awaken  general  response.  Historians  have,  in  fact,  been 
prone  to  regard  fraternity  as  an  element  totally  lacking  in  American 
life,  and  have  based  their  criticism  of  our  democracy  largely  upon  this 
assumed  failing.  But  the  mere  fact  that  in  America  fraternity  did  not 
take  the  form  of  European  nationalism  by  no  means  proves  that  this, 
the  one  solidifying  and  cohesive  force  in  democracy,  found  no  exempli- 
fication hi  American  life  and  theory.  On  the  contrary,  fraternity  in  our 
country  led  to  a  type  of  social  cohesion  which,  if  less  spectacular  and 
awe-inspiring,  was  certainly  more  productive  of  immediate  good — it 
caused  the  formation  of  voluntary  associations. 

"Americans  of  all  ages,  all  conditions,  and  all  dispositions,"  says 
De  Tocqueville,  "  constantly  form  associations.  They  have  not  only 
commercial  and  manufacturing  companies,  in  which  all  take  part,  but 
associations  of  a  thousand  other  kinds, — religious,  moral,  serious,  futile, 
general  or  restricted,  enormous  or  diminutive.  The  Americans  make 
associations  to  give  entertainments,  to  found  seminaries,  to  build  inns, 
to  construct  churches,  to  diffuse  books,  to  send  missionaries  to  the 
antipodes;  they  found  in  this  manner  hospitals,  prisons,  schools.  If  it 
be  proposed  to  inculcate  some  truth,  or  to  foster  some  feeling,  by  the 
encouragement  of  a  great  example,  they  form  a  society.  Wherever,  at 
the  head  of  some  new  undertaking,  you  see  the  government  hi  France, 
.  or  a  man  of  rank  in  England,  in  the  United  States  you  will  be  sure  to 
find  an  association.  .  .  .  Thus  the  most  democratic  country  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  is  that  in  which  men  have,  in  our  tune,  carried  to  the 
highest  perfection  the  art  of  pursuing  in  common  the  objects  of  their 
common  desires,  and  have  applied  this  new  science  to  the  greatest  number 
of  purposes."  1 

This  ready  resort  to  voluntary  associations  is  the  direct  outgrowth 

of  the  practical  liberty  men  enjoyed.    Schooled  from  birth  to  rely  upon 

their  own  exertions,  and  to  regard  the  encroachments  of  the  government 

with  a  suspicious  and  a  hostile  eye,  when  they  desired  to  effect  special 

1  De  Tocqueville,  II,  pp.  129-130. 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy       45 

G\  RlO  U  P  N  '      £\  IV- 

purposes  men  naturally  turned  to  voluntary  group  action.  The  very- 
equality  of  conditions  made  them  incapable  singly  and  individually  of 
accomplishing  any  large  ends,  and  forced  them  to  unite  with  others  of 
like  minds  in  order  to  make  their  individual  efforts  efficacious.  There 
were  few  figures  of  outstanding  power  and  influence  to  whom  could  be 
entrusted  any  considerable  undertaking.  Moreover,  there  was  another 
condition  which  powerfully  promoted  the  growth  of  associations  and 
habituated  men  to  employ  them  as  a  means  to  achieving  social  purposes, 
that  fear  which  impressed  nearly  every  disinterested  observer — the 
tyranny  of  the  majority. 

We  have  seen  how  the  American  habit  of  liberty  was  a  traditional 
and  irrational  feeling,  not  a  carefully  elaborated  theory  of  politics  or 
economics.  Hence,  while  for  all  ordinary  purposes  it  sufficed  to  keep  the 
acts  of  government  within  certain  definite  limits,  whenever  men  were 
deeply  stirred  in  the  more  emotional  parts  of  their  nature,  whenever  a 
question  presented  itself,  not  as  one  of  mere  political  expediency,  but  as  a 
great  moral  issue,  they  realized  that  they  did  possess  a  most  powerful 
weapon  for  attaining  their  tremendously  vital  aims  in  the  political 
power  of  the  majority.  They  were  not  bound  by  a  theory,  but  they 
acted  from  a  habit;  and  thus,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  that  very 
liberty  and  independence  which  individually  led  them  to  fight  against 
any  restriction  of  their  attempts  to  enforce  their  own  wills,  led  them 
collectively  to  enforce  upon  a  minority  their  collective  will.  Their 
liberty  consisted  in  having  their  own  way;  why  should  not  they  as  a 
majority  have  their  own  way  with  their  fellows?  In  this  respect  American 
liberty  takes  after  the  French  rather  than  the  English  conception;  the 
latter  nation,  long  trained  in  opposition  to  a  hostile  government,  has 
preserved  such  a  wholesome  fear  for  the  invasion  of  the  magic  circle 
every  individual  drew  around  himself  that  it  still  hesitates  to  operate 
socially  through  political  means. 

The  fact  that  the  restraint  placed  upon  the  action  of  the  majority  in 
this  country  is  rather  customary  than  legal  and  rational,  coupled  with 
the  fact  that  the  American  form  of  government  provides  for  no  responsible  \ 
executive  and  no  recognized  opposition,  has  necessitated  the  organiza-   ' 
tion  of  all  minorities  that  they  may  most  effectively  provide  against 
such  attacks.     The  political  decentralization  of  the  country  and  the 
great  emphasis  placed  upon  local  self-government  have  been  the  mos 
effective  legal  methods  of  opposing  the  tyranny  of  the  majority; 
the  Southern  states  have  been  able  to  nullify  the  Fifteenth  Amendment'1  'c 
in  a  way  that  would  have  been  impossible  in  centralized  France.    But 


46  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

these  constitutional  provisions  have  naturally  been  supplemented  by 
innumerable  associations  for  resisting  and  if  possible  changing  through 
persuasion  the  will  of  the  majority;  and  this  habit  of  organizing  to  pro- 
tect one's  habitual  rights  against  the  government  has  naturally  fortified 
the  other  strong  motive  toward  the  formation  of  groups  for  particular 
purposes. 

Moreover,  in  all  of  the  newly  settled  portions  of  the  country  the 
government  itself  was  largely  entrusted  to  just  such  private  associations; 
the  early  days  in  California,  the  vigilante  committees,  and  even  more 
significant,  the  practical  formulation  of  an  entire  code  of  mining  laws 
and  rights  through  voluntary  cooperation,  bear  witness  to  the  ease  with 
which  Americans  accustomed  to  a  large  amount  of  practical  liberty 
combine  to  further  common  purposes.  The  town-meeting  differed  very 
little  from  the  church  meeting  or  the  political  club;  and  for  the  American 
it  was  quite  natural  to  regard  government  as  merely  that  association  in 
which  he  united  with  his  fellows  for  certain  definite  and  particular  ends. 
It  was  but  one  of  the  many  groups  to  which  he  belonged.  Each  of  these 
groups  had  some  definite  purpose  and  restricted  its  operations  to  the 
attainment  of  this  purpose;  government  performed  some  peculiar  func- 
tions, but  there  was  nothing  to  lead  one  to  think  that  it  either  ought  or 
was  able  to  perform  any  others  than  those  it  had  always  done. 

What  was  this  peculiar  purpose  of  government?  The  early  Americans 
quite  clearly  recognized  that  it  was  to  take  care  of  those  interests  which 
all  the  members  of  the  community  had  in  common.  The  constitution 
of  Vermont,  for  instance,  urged  "that  the  common  benefit,  protection, 
and  security  of  the  people,  nation,  or  community,  and  not  the  particular 
emolument  or  advantage  of  any  single  man,  family,  or  set  of  men  who 
are  a  part  only  of  that  community,"  is  the  proper  aim  of  government. 
The  constitution  of  Massachusetts  carefully  contrasted  the  function  of 
the  government  as  the  guardian  of  the  general  interest  with  the  special 
privilege  idea,  and  declared  its  aim  to  be  the  common  good  and  happi- 
ness of  the  entire  people, — "not  for  the  profit,  honor,  or  private  interest 
of  any  one  man,  family,  or  class  of  men."  *  Any  interest  less  general 
than  that  of  the  entire  community  was  wholly  beyond  the  sphere  of  the 
particular  association  of  government.  For  all  such  purposes  men  must 
form  other  groups  and  help  themselves.  And  for  the* Fathers  there  was 
only  one  interest  which  the  nation  did  possess  in  common.  John  Han- 
cock phrased  it:  "Security  to  the  persons  and  property  of  the  governed 
is  so  obviously  the  design  and  end  of  civil  government,  that  to  attempt  a 

1  Merriam,  pp.  6 1,  75. 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy       47 

logical  proof  of  it  would  be  like  burning  tapers  at  noonday  to  assist 
the  sun  in  enlightening  the  world."  1  The  purpose  of  government  was, 
not  to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  the  citizens  and  to  keep  every  one 
from  interfering  with  those  of  his  neighbor  while  guaranteeing  his  own; 
only  in  time  of  dire  calamity  would  a  man  think  of  calling  upon  it  for 
positive  aid.  Indeed,  the  Fathers  were  much  clearer  and  more  definite 
in  their  ideas  of  the  powers  that  government  had  wrongfully  usurped 
than  they  were  of  those  which  it  ought  to  exercise;  and  the  dominance  of 
the  commercial  Federalists  at  the  outset  of  the  republic's  history,  while 
it  gave  a  strong  government  to  the  nation,  only  served  to  confirm  the 
mass  of  the  people  in  their  conviction  of  the  wrongness  of  allowing  the 
political  power  to  serve  the  private  interests  of  any  particular  class  or 
group  of  the  community.  Jeffersonian  democracy  stood  for  the  closest 
restriction  of  executive  and  legislative  power  to  those  interests  which 
were  beyond  perad venture  of  doubt  common  and  general;  and  it  neces- 
sarily gave  a  strong  impetus  toward  the  formation  of  other  associations 
that  should  attain  group  aims  not  including  the  entire  community. 

Fraternity  thus  found  expression  in  American  democracy  as  the  tend- 
ency of  free  and  equal  citizens  to  unite  together  for  the  promotion  of  the 
interests  that  appealed  to  the  group;  instead  of  as  in  France  being  the 
cooperation  of  all  the  members  of  the  nation  in  a  common  political  or 
military  enterprise,  it  was  the  voluntary  cooperation  of  certain  groups 
to  serve  their  own  private  interests.  It  was  the  inevitable  result  of  an 
individualistic  society;  the  social  interests  and  impulses  constantly 
brought  about  the  formation  of  larger  and  larger  individuals.  The  im- 
portance of  such  a  habit  and  attitude  of  approaching  social  problems 
when  men  are  brought  into  contact  with  the  changed  conditions  of  an 
industrial  age  are  apparent;  labor  organizations  sprang  up  to  express 
the  interests^  the  laborers  in  just  the  same  way  as  political  or  religious 
organizations  or  purely  benevolent  associations  might  have  come  into 
being! 

Having  completed  our  examination  of  the  three  elements  making  upi 
American    democracy,    equality    or    the    independent   Yankee-farmer- 
ideal,  liberty  or  the  habit  of  self-reliance  and  having  one's  own  way 
without  interference,  and  fraternity  or  the  tendency  to  unite  with  one's 
fellows  in  the  pursuit  of  group  interests,  and  having  contrasted  them 
with  the  similar  conceptions  in  English  and  French  democracy,  we  have- 
arrived  at  the  point  where  we  can  sketch  the  social  ideal  of  the  early 
American  republic.    Nothing  is  so  illuminating  in  trying  to  discover  the 

1  Merriam,  p.  62. 


48  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

theories  and  conceptions  actuating  the  past  as  to  find  out  what  were 
its  ideals,  what  was  its  Utopia:  for  a  clue  to  the  society  men  wished  to 
attain,  even  though  they  actually  fell  far  short  of  realizing  it,  is  an  in- 
sight into  their  inmost  thoughts  and  motives.  There  was  developed, 
in  the  period  between  the  downfall  of  the  Federalists  and  the  beginning 
of  the  slavery  contest,  in  the  era  of  the  democracy  of  Jefferson  and  of 
his  successor  and  heir  Jackson,  a  social  ideal  which  has  remained  until 
very  recently,  amidst  all  the  changes  of  industrial  expansion,  the  goal 
at  the  bottom  of  all  forms  of  labor  organization,  and  the  goal  even  now 
inspiring  the  majority  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 

The  ideal  of  democracy,  that  which  to  later  generations  of  workers 
seemed  a  truly  golden  age,  was  the  ideal  of  the  simple,  frugal  agricul- 
tural community  as  it  was  known  hi  New  England.  It  was  that  of  a 
society  of  farmers,  each  owning  and  tilling  his  own  land,  each  working 
largely  upon  his  own  initiative,  yet  coming  together  with  his  fellows 
upon  a  basis  of  equality  in  town  meeting  and  contributing  his  share  of 
the  shrewd  wisdom  born  of  a  lifetime  of  sturdy  independence.  Educated 
in  the  common  school,  equally  intelligent  and  fully  able  to  hold  their 
own  in  argument  with  the  parson,  possessing  not  very  much  more  and 
not  very  much  less  than  their  neighbors,  they  would  live  their  lives  in 
this  new  world  untroubled  by  the  inequalities  and  injustices  of  the 
feudal  estates  and  the  industrial  centers  of  Europe,  happy  and  contented 
in  their  rural  community.  It  was  in 'a  society  approximately  realizing 
such  an  ideal  that  democracy  was  born  in  America;  it  was  only  in  such  a 
society  that  democratic  institutions  could  hope  to  flourish.  The  history 
of  the  labor  movement  of  the  century  is  the  history  of  the  attempts  of 
men  to  struggle  against  the  inevitable,  to  retain,  under  rapidly  trans- 
jforming  conditions,  that  same  status  which  they  had  enjoyed  as  equal 
jmembers  of  a  free  society  of  farmers. 

This  specific  nature  of  the  democratic  community  was  recognized  by 
some  of  the  most  penetrating  men  of  the  time.  Thus  in  the  great  con- 
troversy between  the  Republicans  and  the  Federalists,  John  Taylor 
declared  that  "land  was  the  real  basis  of  democracy."  J  J.  T.  Mercer 
made  the  same  claim  in  a  speech  in  Congress  declaring  that  the  de- 
mocracy of  the  Republican  opponents  of  Hamilton  was  the  democracy  of 
the  farmer.  The  opponents  of  the  Republicans  recognized  the  same 
fact.  John  Adams  declared  the  conflict  to  be  between  the  rich  and  the 
poor,  the  seaboard  merchants  and  the  farmers.  Marcellus,  author  of 

1  John  Taylor,  Inquiry  into  the  Principles  and  Policy  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States. 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy       49 

Letters  from  the  Virginia  Gazette,  declared  specifically  that  what  democ- 
racy really  meant  was  that  society  of  New  England  founded  on  free 
labor  and  small  land  holdings.1 

But  it  is  to  Jefferson  himself  that  we  must  go  to  see  this  most  clearly. 
He  hated  cities  and  the  conditions  which  industry  brought  about;  al- 
though he  appealed  to  city  laborers  for  support  he  hoped  to  keep  their 
number  as  low  as  possible.  As  Beard  says,  "His  very  democracy  was 
founded  on  an  economic  system  of  small  land-owning  farmers, — upon 
that  wide  distribution  of  property  that  Was  possible  only  where  land 
was  cheap  and  plentiful.  It  did  not  embrace  a  working  class,  as  that 
term  is  conceived  in  modern  life.  The  incompatibility  of  an  immense 
proletariat  and  an  equalitarian  political  democracy  he  clearly  realized, 
but  he  never  attempted  to  solve  the  problem  which  it  presented.  In 
fact,  he  apparently  believed  that  the  problem  was  insoluble  and  the 
only  hope  of  American  democracy  was  to  escape  from  it,  by  preventing 
its  appearance  in  the  society  of  the  United  States. "  2  In  his  Notes  on 
Virginia  he  bids  manufacturers  keep  away  from  America.  "  Those  who  " 
labor  on  the  earth,"  he  says,  "are  the  chosen  people  of  God,  if  ever  he 
had  a  chosen  people,  whose  breasts  he  has  made  his  peculiar  deposit  for 
substantial  and  genuine  virtue.  It  is  the  focus  in  which  he  keeps  alive 
that  sacred  fire,  which  otherwise  might  escape  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Corruption  of  morals  in  the  mass  of  the  cultivators  is  a  phenomenon 
of  which  no  age  nor  nation  has  furnished  an  example.  .  .  .  Dependence 
begets  subservience  and  venality,  suffocates  thQ^n^^yyrt^^Qiid^^ 
prepares  fit_tools  for  the  designs  of  ambition?7"5^  And  Beard  concludes, 
"Jeffersonian  Democracy  simply  meant  the  possession  of  the  federal 
government  by  the  agrarian  masses  led  by  an  aristocracy  of  slave- 
holding  planters,  and  the  theoretical  repudiation  of  the  right  to  use 
the  government  for  the  benefit  of  any  capitalistic  group,  fiscal,  banking, 
or  manufacturing."  4  And  Jacksonian  Democracy,  in  substituting  far- 
mer for  planter  leadership,  simply  removed  the  Jefferson  aristocracy 
in  favor  of  a  purer  form  of  the  agricultural  community. 

This  was  the  ideal,  this  was  the  meaning  of  American  democracy 
during  that  period  when  it  is  acknowledged  to  have  persisted  in  its 
purest  form;  and  a  recognition  of  this  fact  will  throw  a  great  light  on 
the  meaning  which  has  been  given  to  "democracy"  by  American  labor. 

1  Beard,  Jeffersonian  Democracy,  p.  237  S. 

2  Beard,  op.  ait.,  p.  422. 

8  Jefferson,  Washington  ed.,  v.  8,  p.  405  ff. 
4  Beard,  op.  cU.t  p.  467. 


50  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Just  so  soon  as  the  program  of  a  trade  union  has  risen  above  mere  self- 
defense  it  has  endeavored  in  some  way  to  cope  with  the  problem  of 
creating  in  an  industrial  society  so  much  of  the  old  agricultural  ideal  as 
can  possibly  be  recovered: — primarily,  the  equality  of  condition  which 
existed  in  that  golden  age,  and,  perhaps  just  as  important,  those  habits 
of  independence,  of  self-reliance  and  self-respect  and  general  position 
in  the  community,  which  made  the  life  of  the  American  farmer  worth 
living.  It  is  an  ideal  which  persisted  as  long  as  the  frontier  was  there 
to  keep  it  green;  and  it  is  an  ideal  at  the  very  basis  of  the  notions  of 
those  who  yearn  after  "industrial  democracy."  Thus  Mr.  Graham 
Wallas  recently  declared  that  the  essential  requisite  of  any  truly  demo- 
cratic society  was  a  practical  equality  amongst  its  members — and  he 
pointed,  as  those  countries  where  the  democratic  spirit  was  today  most 
in  evidence,  to  Norway,  to  Switzerland,  and  to  New  Zealand — and  what 
are  they  but  those  lands  where  the  old  agricultural  civilization,  having 
rid  itself  of  feudalism,  has  not  yet  succumbed  to  the  industrial  revolution? 
There  were,  however,  certain  other  elements  introduced  into  American 
democracy  which,  though  in  reality  but  the  logical  development  of  the 
ideas  of  Jefferson's  period,  nevertheless  did  add  new  and  characteristi- 
cally American  notions  that  played  a  great  part  in  the  development  of 
the  labor  movement.  It  was  in  the  period  of  Jackson  that  the  theory 
received  its  elaboration,  and  it  was  in  the  period  of  Jackson  that  we 
first  find  labor  organizations  springing  into  existence.  What,  then, 
were  these  new  ideas? 

^  They  were  the  product  of  two  new  conditions — first  and  foremost, 
j '  the  growth  of  the  frontier  and  pioneering  element,  secondly,  the  rise  of  an 
n  urban  and  quasi-industrial  population.  During  the  period  immediately 
ft  succeeding  the  Revolution  America  had  been  occupied  mainly  with  con- 
solidating those  portions  of  her  land  that  had  already  been  staked  out, 
with  developing  rural  and  farming  lands  where  the  pioneer  had  already 
blazed  the  trail.  Jefferson  was  the  spokesman  of  these  older  agricultural 
interests.  But  beginning  about  1800  there  was  a  tremendous  emigration 
over  the  Appalachians  into  the  Northwest  and  into  Louisiana.  By  1830 
nine  new  states  had  been  added  to  the  union,  seven  of  them  from  beyond 
the  mountains;  by  1850,  sixteen.  Jackson  of  Tennessee  and  his  followers 
represented  this  new  and  more  primitive  society,  this  society  in  which 
those  elements  of  equality  and  liberty  we  have  found  characteristic  of 
the  Revolutionary  period  were  even  more  accentuated.  And  simultane- 
ous with  this  growth  of  the  west  was  theorise  of  handicrafts  in  the  cities  of 
the  East,  and  the  consequent  increase  of  the  poorer  classes.  During 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy       51 

the  decade  1820-1830  these  propertyless  men  were  nearly  all  enfranchised: 
the  states  revised  their  old  constitutions,  New  York  in  1821,  Massachu-  •• 
setts  in  1820,  Virginia  in  1829-30.      For  the  first  time  they  were  an  im- 
portant political  factor;  and  we  shall  see  how  they  made  use  of  their  new 
ballot. 

The  most  important  modification  these  new  elements  made  in  the 
Jeffersonian  democracy  was  to  sweep  away  the  old  landed  leaders  of 
the  South.  The  previous  era  had  been  one  of  power  to  the  legislatures, 
who  were  left  to  govern  the  country,  not  according  to  its  will,  but  as 
they  themselves  thought  best.  These  aristocratic  bodies  had  served 
the  interests  of  the  planters  in  the  South  and  the  merchants  in  the  North, 
no  matter  how  devoted  they  might  also  have  been  in  a  benevolent  way 
to  the  sturdy  farmer.  The  plain  people  of  the  west  and  of  the  cities  now 
sought  to  break  down  this  legislative  aristocracy  and  to  curb  it  through 
a  strong  executive.  Jackson  was  elected  as  the  tribune  of  the  people 
against  the  patrician  legislators,  and  the  blows  he  so  doughtily  dealt 
at  the  moneyed  and  slave  interests  were  inspired  by  a  sense  of  his  public 
trust.  The  governors  of  the  states  also  received  an  immense  accretion 
of  power;  as  Merriam  says,  "One  pronounced  feature  of  the  democratic 
movement  in  the  first  half  of  the  century  was  the  elevation  of  the  execu- 
tive and  the  degradation  of  the  legislative  power.  The  early  distrust  of 
the  executive,  which  once  took  the  form  of  a  fear  that  monarchy  might 
return,  had  disappeared,  and  also  the  early  confidence  in  the  legislature. 
Popular  suspicion  seemed  to  be  directed,  not  so  much  against  a  tyrannical 
monarchy,  as  against '  encroaching  aristocracy.'"  *  Together  with  this 
increased  responsibility  of  the  executive  went  the  abandonment  of  the 
old  theory  that  the  people's  representatives  were  to  legislate  as  they 
thought  best.  The  electoral  college  lost  its  meaning;  legislators  came 
to  bind  themselves  to  their  constituents;  their  terms  were  shortened, 
and  property  qualifications,  with  the  aim  of  securing  the  cultured  gentle- 
man, were  abandoned.  Rotation  in  office,  on  the  theory  (a  by-product, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  the  Yankee-farmer  age)  that  one  man  was  as  good 
as  another  for  any  position,  and  that  too  long  tenure  of  office  made 
one  unresponsive  to  popular  needs,  took  the  place  of  permanent  ap- 
pointments. Everything  tended  toward  a  democracy  in  which  one 
strong,  responsible  head  was  chosen  by  all  the  people  and  was  held  ac- 
countable to  them  for  his  act. 

This  ideal  of  the  strong  but  responsible  executive  has  become  a  very 
important  part  of  American  democracy.    Other  countries — Russia,  for 
1  Merriam,  op.  cit.,  p.  186. 


52  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

instance, — have  developed  a  form  of  consultative,  deliberative,  and 
cooperative  action,  on  the  model  of  the  village  mir.  Such  has  been  the 
general  tendency  in  most  European  lands — witness  the  supremacy  of  the 
legislature  in  France,  of  Parliament  in  England.  A  cabinet  jointly  re- 
sponsible for  its  actions,  where  policies  are  worked  out  in  collaboration, 
indicates  just  such  a  conception  of  cooperative  democracy.  In  America 
the  pioneering,  liberty-loving  habit  has  proved  too  strong;  our  ideal  is 
the  business  ideal,  the  ideal  of  the  board  of  directors  who  give  their  man- 
ager carte  blanche  but  require  him  to  "produce  the  goods."  General 
Goethal's  erection  of  the  Panama  Canal  illustrates  admirably  this  no- 
tion of  the  responsible  executive.  It  has  been  our  habit  to  idealize  strong 
leaders,  like  Roosevelt,  and  then  when  they  no  longer  please  us  to  throw 
them  into  the  discard.  We  abolish  city  councils  and  install  commissions 
of  a  few  men;  we  advocate  the  short  ballot  and  its  implied  increase  of 
executive  powers.  But  we  also  demand  the  recall.  We  require  that 
our  officials  be  red-blooded  men,  but  we  desire  to  keep  an  eye  on  them. 
The  effects  of  this  policy  are  today  apparent  in  our  political  life,  when 
we  have  failed  to  discover  any  leaders;  we  are  driven  to  the  entire  aban- 
donment of  legislative  action  in  favor  of  direct  enactment  through  the 
initiative  and  the  referendum. 

This  characteristic  is  markedly  apparent  when  we  come  to  consider 
labor  organizations.  There  has  undoubtedly  been  a  tendency  to  leave 
everything  to  the  leader,  and  to  "  fire  him  if  he  doesn't  produce  the  goods. " 
This  has  led  to  much  of  the  complaints  against  labor  leaders;  fearful  of 
losing  their  prestige,  they  have  been  continuously  exposed  to  the  insid- 
ious dangers  confronting  the  Bonapartist.  Confident  that  if  they  could 
only  "put  it  across  "  their  men  would  not  inquire  too  closely  into  methods, 
they  have  at  times  both  precipitated  unnecessary  strikes,  and  they  have 
resorted  to  means  which  have  only  discredited  their  organization  in  the 
public  eye.  For  there  has  been  likewise  a  loyalty  to  every  successful 
but  persecuted  leader,  no  matter  what  he  has  done;  witness  the  persist- 
ence of  the  Bridge  Workers  in  reelecting  the  officers  who  have  been  con- 
victed of  dynamiting.  But  this  habit  of  mind  and  action  is  also  respon- 
sible for  the  difficulty  with  which  American  labor  has  been  persuaded 
to  adopt  any  of  the  forms  of  "industrial  democracy "  which  appeal  to 
their  European  brothers;  the  very  idea  of  "works-councils,"  of  collective 
participation  in  the  management  of  industry,  which  to  the  Russian  is 
perfectly  natural  and  strikes  the  Englishman  with  no  shock,  involves  a 
totally  new  orientation  for  the  American  worker.  He  has  been  for  so 
long  trained  to  let  his  employer  do  the  directing  while  he  has  been  con- 


The  Characteristics  of  the  American  Philosophy  of  Democracy      53 

tent  to  glean  the  harvest  that  it  is  only  in  recent  years  that  he  has  be- 
gun to  outgrow  this  product  of  old  American  conditions. 

We  have  now  completed  our  sketch  of  the  dominant  social  philosophy 
of  the  Jeffersonian  and  Jacksonian  periods,  the  truly  formative  era  in 
American  history.  It  was  an  idealization  of  existent  conditions,  not  a 
philosophy  of  revolt — save  in  so  far  as  those  very  conditions  were  in 
themselves  the  products  of  revolution  against  feudal  and  aristocratic 
Europe.  It  offered  an  ideal  which  for  a  brief  interval  seemed  fairly  at- 
tained, and  then  gradually  and  imperceptibly  slipped  away  into  the 
background,  and  ascended  to  the  heavens,  whence  it  might  cast  its  cheer- 
ing beacon,  but  whither  man  could  scarcely  hope  to  follow  it.  It  held 
out  the  ideal  of  the  peaceful,  virtuous,  idyllic  rural  community, — suffi- 
ciently elevated  above  the  state  of  nature  to  have  attained  the  civiliza- 
tion of  thought  and  art,  but  sufficiently  remote  from  the  iniquities  of  the 
city  to  preserve  itself  from  the  contaminating  influences  of  urban  life. 
A  society  of  free  and  independent  farmers,  self-reliant  and  intelligent, 
uniting  freely  for  the  furtherance  of  their  common  purposes,  be  they 
religious,  educational,  benevolent,  or  political;  a  society  which  utilized 
national  politics  rather  as  a  fascinating  intellectual  diversion  than  as  a 
serious  part  of  daily  life,  and  which  consequently  preferred  a  single 
responsible  representative  who  could  be  counted  upon  to  do  the  acting 
while  he  left  the  discussing  to  the  home  circle, — such  was  the  ideal  dem- 
ocratic community  of  the  first  half  of  the  last  century.  It  never  actu- 
ally existed  anywhere,  of  course;  but  in  the  villages  of  New  England  it 
was  closely  approximated,  and  the  plain  living  and  high  thinking  of  a 
Concord,  was  the  inspiration  and  hope  of  many  a  mind  that  would  oth- 
erwise have  given  up  in  despair  the  struggle  for  a  more  complete  de- 
mocracy. Here  was  democracy :  here  at  least  every  man  had  a  fair  chance 
to  show  what  was  in  him;  and  in  the  succeeding  years,  as  men  in  the 
rising  factory  towns  looked  back  upon  the  age  of  the  country  village,  it 
was  this  ideal  which  led  them  to  combine,  it  was  this  vision  which  in- 
spired them  with  a  desire  to  recreate  it  anew. 


4.    THE  MECHANICS'  MOVEMENT  OF  THE  TWENTIES  AND 

THE  THIRTIES 

WE  have  seen  the  very  definite  ideal  which  permeated  the  American 
society  of  the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  and  which  represented,  es- 
pecially to  those  who  had  not  quite  attained  it,  a  state  of  affairs  that 
could  hi  no  wise  be  unproved  upon.  But  no  sooner  had  the  new  repub- 
lic been  established  upon  these  political  and  social  principles  than  cer- 
tain members  of  the  community  found  themselves  in  a  position  quite 
different  from  the  equality  laid  down  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. And  as  time  went  on,  particularly  during  the  industrial  depres- 
sion following  the  close  of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  this  class  of  men  found 
themselves  dropping  lower  and  lower  in  the  social  scale,  losing  their  sta- 
tus in  the  farmer  community.  The  men  who  thus  saw  their  ideal  slip- 
ping away  from  them,  and  regarded  it  all  the  more  tenderly  because  it 
represented  a  something  that  had  obtained  in  the  "good  old  days"  but 
seemed  gradually  to  have  receded,  were  the  "mechanics"  of  the  towns 
of  the  eastern  seaboard,  the  handicraftsmen  and  skilled  artisans  who 
manufactured  those  products  that  in  increasing  numbers  were  no  longer 
made  upon  the  farm  or  in  the  home.  Their  status  hi  society  was  being 
lost;  their  standard  of  living,  which  had  placed  them  on  an  approximate 
level  with  the  other  members  of  the  agricultural  community,  was  being 
forced  down.  There  were  those  who  feared  the  emergence  of  conditions 
resembling  the  old-world  squalor  and  poverty;  and  the  men  who  thus 
found  themselves  sinking  turned  to  the  only  philosophy  of  which  they 
knew  and  phrased  their  grievances  in  the  ideology  of  natural  rights,  of 
equality  and  freedom. 

Thus  arose  what,  if  we  except  what  fragments  of  guilds  had  ever  been 
imported  from  English  life,  were  the  first  labor  organizations  in  America; 
and  they  arose  hi  response  to  the  very  definite  questions,  "How  can  we 
retain  our  old  status?  how  can  we  maintain  ourselves  in  a  condition 
wherein  we  shall  be  truly  free  and  equal?  how,  hi  the  face  of  these  ad- 
verse circumstances,  can  we  gain  the  rights  which,  as  members  of  a  de- 
mocratic community  that  has  once  and  for  all  recognized  that  all  men 
are  created  free  and  equal,  are  assuredly  ours?"  In  answering  these 
questions,  inspired  as  they  were  by  the  typically  American  ideal  of  de- 
mocracy, and  confident  as  they  felt  themselves  to  be  in  merely  calling  the 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  55 

nation  back  to  her  former  state,  the  mechanics  of  the  cities  really  con- 
tributed much  to  the  modification  and  further  development  of  that 
ideal. 

The  first  general  movement  in  which  laborers  can  be  said  to  have 
formed  themselves  into  groups  as  a  distinct  class  took  its  rise  in  the  ra- 
ther ephemeral  associations  and  sporadic  strikes  that  are  revealed  in 
the  records  as  having  existed  between  1792  and  1827,  but  it  only  assumed 
importance  with  an  individual  aim  and  a  generally  accepted  theory  in 
the  decade  between  1827  and  1837.  It  ended  abruptly  in  the  panic  of 
the  latter  year,  and  did  not  really  begin  again  until  the  fifties;  and  it  is 
thus  a  fairly  isolated  development  with  a  definite  beginning  and  a  clearly 
marked  growth  of  aim  and  philosophy.  Its  importance  for  our  pur- 
poses, apart  from  the  fact  that  it  represents  the  first  emergence  of  a  dis- 
tinctive philosophy  of  American  labor,  lies  in  the  interesting  fact  that 
hi  its  brief  course  it  reveals  nearly  all  of  those  characteristic  tendencies 
and  ways  of  thinking  that  we  shall  find  on  a  much  greater  scale  in  the 
larger  movement  springing  directly  out  of  the  industrial  revolution; 
and  upon  this  small  stage  it  will  be  possible  for  us  to  pick  out  with 
some  ease  threads  of  purpose,  bits  of  attitude  and  character,  tenden- 
cies of  theory  and  bents  of  philosophy,  that  will  serve  us  in  very  good 
stead  when  we  come  to  trace  our  way  through  the  far  more  complex 
drama  of  conflicting  ideals  that  emerges  after  the  Civil  War.  It  will 
be  our  aim,  then,  in  the  present  chapter  to  deal  with  the  motives  and 
theories,  the  purposes  and  ideals  revealed  in  this  first  American  labor 
movement,  and  in  the  next,  using  the  material  herein  discovered  as  a 
basis,  to  form  generalizations  and  hypotheses  which  we  can  later  verify 
in  the  strictly  industrial  movement. 

It  is  important  at  the  outset  to  bear  clearly  in  mind  that  this  move- 
ment of  the  thirties  was  in  no  sense  an  industrial  movement,  nor  did  it 
concern  the  few  factory  operatives  even  then  in  existence.  Unlike  the 
formation  of  labor  organizations  in  England,  their  formation  in  this 
country  was  not  called  forth  by  conditions  arising  out  of  the  industrial 
revolution,  and  the  growth  of  the  factory  system.  It  was  not  till  the 
period  just  preceding  the  Civil  War  that  America  was  appreciably  in- 
fluenced by  the  rise  of  factories,  and  it  was  only  during  that  struggle 
itself  that  they  assumed  great  importance.  "Labor  organization  and 
the  '  class-struggle '  of  wage-earners  in  America  preceded  by  many  years 
the  factory  system  which  finally  separated  the  worker  from  the  owner- 
ship of  the  tools,"  says  Saposs.1  It  was  not  till  the  Trades'  Union  of 
1  Commons  and  Associates,  History  of  Labour  in  the  United  States,  I,  26. 


56  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Pennsylvania  was  organized  in  the  autumn  of  1833  that  we  find  factory 
operatives  playing  any  considerable  part  in  labor  organizations;  and 
it  was  in  the  same  movement  that  extended  warnings  against  the  dangers 
of  the  factory  system  as  developed  in  England  were  first  seriously  made 
a  part  of  an  American  program.  Even  the  New  England  Association, 
which  had  its  stronghold  in  that  part  of  the  country  where  factories 
were  most  numerous,  found  in  1833  that  it  could  not  count  upon  the 
operatives  for  much  support.  "  The  absence  of  delegates  from  the 
factory  villages,"  it  found  in  its  1833  convention,  "gives  reason  to  fear 
that  the  operatives  in  the  factories  are  already  subdued  to  the  bidding 
of  the  employers — that  they  are  already  sold  to  the  oppressor,  that  they 
have  felt  the  chains  riveted  upon  themselves  and  their  children,  and 
despair  of  redemption.  The  Farmers  and  Mechanics,  then,  are  the  last 
hope  of  the  American  people."  *  And  in  the  convention  of  the  National 
Trades'  Union  in  the  next  year  the  delegates  could  only  look  with  dread 
upon  the  fearsome  spectre  of  English  conditions  and  commiserate  the 
fate  of  the  Lowell  women  operatives  as  a  problem  analogous  to  their 
own  but  nevertheless  not  touching  them  directly.2 

No,  this  early  movement  was  preeminently  a  movement  of  the  skilled 
mechanics  and  handicraftsmen,  of  printers  and  shoemakers,  carpenters, 
tailors,  and  the  like.  These  were  just  the  men  most  able  to  set  up  in 
business  for  themselves.  The  unskilled  workers  were  not  interested, 
largely  because  they  found  their  wages  were  rising;  and  it  was  to  the 
body  of  unskilled  labor  that  the  factory  appealed.  Thus  the  wages  of 
common  laborers  had  risen  from  less  than  $4  a  week  in  1784  to  $7  or  $8 
in  1810,  while  those  of  the  skilled  had  remained  stationary  and  had  in 
real  wages  considerably  declined.3  It  was  against  this  falling  standard 
of  life,  this  growing  inequality  in  a  society  whose  ideal  it  was  to  preserve 
an  approximate  equality,  that  the  skilled  artisans  protested.  The 
movement  of  the  twenties  and  thirties  was  primarily  a  movement  of 
men  who  felt,  "I  am  as  good  as  you  are;  I  am  your  equal";  and  it  was  a 
protest  against  a  capitalistic  system,  though  not  against  one  erected  on 
an  industrial  foundation.  The  fall  in  the  status  of  the  mechanic  was 
primarily  due  to  the  enlargement  of  the  market  brought  about  by  the 
improved  means  of  transportation,  to  the  consequent  intensifying  and 
widening  of  the  field  of  competition,  and  the  growth  of  a  class  of  so- 
called  "merchant  capitalists"  or  wholesale  investors  to  cope  with  the 

1  Carey's  Select  Excerpta,  IV,  435. 

2  Commons,  A  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  VI,  216  ff. 
8  Commons,  I,  105. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  57 

credit  situation.  Steamboat  transportation  and  the  frenzied  building 
of  canals  were  probably  the  immediate  physical  causes  of  the  grip  the 
merchant  capitalists  were  able  to  get  upon  the  artisans  in  all  the  large 
cities.1 

But  the  detailed  economic  reasons  for  the  lowering  of  the  condition 
of  the  artisan,  the  inevitability  of  sweating  conditions  with  the  growth 
of  a  handicraft  system  upon  an  individualistic  premise,  were  not  known 
to  the  mechanic  himself.  He  felt  his  old  assured  position  in  society, 
economic,  social,  even  political,  with  the  growth  of  party  machinery 
and  bossism,  unaccountably  slipping  away  from  him,  and  he  clutched 
at  the  means  nearest  at  hand  and  most  natural:  he  formed  an  associa- 
tion with  his  fellows  to  regain  his  lost  status.  Thus  the  preamble  of 
the  Mechanics'  Union  states  that  the  object  of  the  organization  is  "for 
the  purpose  of  affording  to  each  other  mutual  protection  from  oppres- 
sion," and  continues,  "We,  the  Journeyman  Mechanics  of  the  City  and 
County  of  Philadelphia,  conscious  that  our  condition  in  Society  is  lower 
than  justice  demands  it  should  be,  and  feeling  our  inability,  individually, 
to  ward  off  from  ourselves  and  families  those  numerous  evils  which 
result  from  an  unequal  and  very  excessive  accumulation  of  wealth  and 
power  into  the  hands  of  a  few,  are  desirous  of  forming  an  association 
which  shall  avert  as  much  as  possible  those  evils  with  which  poverty 
and  incessant  toil  have  already  inflicted,  and  which  threaten  ultimately 
to  overwhelm  and  destroy  us.  ...  Are  we,  who  confer  almost  every 
blessing  on  society,  never  to  be  treated  as  freemen  and  equals  and 
never  be  accounted  worthy  of  an  equivalent  in  return  for  the  products 
of  our  industry?"  Again,  the  platform  of  the  New  England  Associa- 
tion asserts,  "  that  we  are  determined  by  all  fair  and  honorable  means 
to  exalt  the  character  and  promote  the  cause  of  those  who  by  their 
productive  industry  add  riches  to  the  state  and  strength  to  our  political 
institutions  .  .  .  that  we  regard  all  attempts  to  degrade  the  working 
classes  as  so  many  blows  aimed  at  the  destruction  of  popular  virtue — 
without  which  no  human  government  can  long  subsist."  3  The  call 
issued  for  the  formation  of  the  General  Trades'  Union  of  New  York  and 
Vicinity  announces,  "The  time  has  now  arrived  for  the  mechanics  of 
our  city  to  arise  in  their  strength  and  determine  that  they  will  no  longer 
submit  to  the  thralldom  which  they  have  patiently  borne  for  many 
years,  nor  suffer  employers  to  appropriate  an  undue  share  of  the  avails 

1  Commons,  1, 105. 

2  Mechanics1  Free  Press,  October  25,  1828. 

3  Boston  Courier,  August  28,  1830. 


58  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

of  the  laborer  to  his  disadvantage.  .  .  .  They  have  now  become 
alive  to  the  necessity  of  combined  efforts  for  the  purposes  of  self- 
protection."  1 

This  motive  of  self-protection  was  partly  economic;  it  found  expression 
as  a  desire  for  security  of  wage  and  continuity  of  employment.  Thus 
the  striking  carpenters  of  Philadelphia  in  1827  declared  that  the  real 
objection  of  their  masters  to  the  ten-hour  day  was  "because  they  are 
aware  that  if  this  alteration  takes  place,  it  will  deprive  them  of  the 
power  they  have  hitherto  had  of  employing  a  man  during  the  summer, 
in  the  long  days,  and  either  discharging  him  in  the  winter  or  reducing 
his  wages,  as  it  will  make  a  journeyman  of  nearly  as  much  value  in  the 
winter  as  in  the  summer."  2  But  it  was  also  something  far  more  than 
merely  economic  security  that  the  men  desired:  it  was  the  restoration 
of  that  position  in  the  community,  that  social  status,  so  imponderable 
yet  so  profound  in  its  effect,  which  as  honest  artisans  they  had  once 
possessed.  The  chief  grievance  of  the  New  England  Association  was 
"  the  low  estimation  in  which  useful  labor  is  held  by  many  whose  station 
in  society  enable  (sic)  them  to  give  the  tone  to  public  opinion.  .  .  . 
All  who  can  do  so  resort  to  some  means  of  living  without  hard  work, 
the  learned  professions  are  crowded,  and  combinations  are  formed  by 
that  portion  of  society  who  have  money  and  leisure,  or  who  live  by  their 
wits,  to  increase  and  maintain  their  own  relative  importance,  whilst 
the  more  industrious  and  useful  portion  of  the  country,  who  are  too 
intent  upon  their  daily  occupation  to  form  combinations  for  mutual 
a  dvantage,  or  to  guard  against  the  devices  of  their  better  informed  or 
more  enterprising  neighbors,  are  reduced  to  constant  toil,  stripped  of 
the  better  share  of  their  earnings,  holding  a  subordinate  if  not  degraded 
situation  in  society,  and  frequently  despised  by  the  very  men  and  women 
and  children  who  live  at  ease  upon  the  fruits  of  their  labor.  There  is 
no  consideration  more  discouraging,  and  at  the  same  time  more  destitute 
of  foundation,  than  a  prevailing  opinion  that  the  industrious  and  un- 
learned portion  of  the  community  cannot  govern  themselves."  3 

The  general  ideal  of  the  movement  as  it  finally  emerged  in  the  thir- 
ties with  its  humanitarian  interests  rudely  shattered,  is  that  of  the 
Philadelphia  Trades'  Union:  "There  is  an  institution  now  forming  for 
the  maintenance  of  a  fair  price  for  labor.  .  .  .  Each  individual  would 

1  Finch,  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  General  Trades'  Union  of  the  City  of  New  York  and 
Its  Vicinity. 

2  Democratic  Press,  June  20,  1827. 

3  To  the  Workingmen  of  New  England,  pamphlet,  Boston,  1832. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  59 

then  receive  a  compensation  that  would  enable  him  with  economy  to 
provide  a  comfortable  subsistence  for  his  family;  to  give  his  children 
an  education  that  would  enable  them  to  become  useful  and  respectable 
members  of  the  community — to  provide  against  dull  seasons  and  sick- 
ness, and  lay  by  a  fund  that  would  support  him  when  the  infirmities  of 
age  should  render  him  unable  to  work."  l  In  a  word,  the  men  who  en- 
gaged upon  this  new  movement  desired  that  same  security  from  want, 
that  same  assured  and  recognized  position  in  society,  which  fell  to  the 
lot  of  the  hardworking  in  any  farming  community.  It  was  the  old  ideal 
of  democracy  that  was  inspiring  them;  and  thus  the  writer  in  the  Me- 
chanics' Free  Press  was  right  when  he  offered  hope  after  the  set-back  of 
the  election  of  1830.  "Meetings  have  already  taken  place  and  com- 
mittees have  been  appointed  to  carry  into  effect  our  principles,  and  we 
look  forward,  from  the  zeal  manifested  by  our  friends  thus  early,  that 
the  principles  of  practical  democracy,  and  those  of  the  revered  Jefferson, 
will  assuredly  triumph  at  the  next  election."  2 

This,  then,  was  the  motive  inspiring  the  entire  handicrafts  movement 
of  the  twenties  and  thirties;  but  the  methods  which  were  employed,  and 
the  immediate  objectives,  as  well  as  the  general  theoretical  justification 
for  such  action,  naturally  changed  and  varied.  The  first  and  longest 
period,  beginning  in  fact  in  the  nineties  of  the  previous  century,  was 
one  of  simple  self-defense  against  the  encroachments  on  the  position 
of  the  workers.  It  was  marked  almost  exclusively  by  sporadic  "  turn- 
outs" or  strikes,  concerted  attempts  at  preserving  their  economic  status 
carried  on  by  men  with  no  previous  organization,  and  followed  by  speedy 
dissolution  of  whatever  associations  had  sprung  up  at  the  conclusion, 
successful  or  unsuccessful,  of  the  turn-out.  Indeed,  it  was  in  only  two 
trades,  the  shoemakers  and  the  printers,  that  any  organization  at  all 
was  kept  up  between  strikes,  until  i8i8.3  The  Philadelphia  shoemakers 
formed  a  society  in  1792,  which  soon  disappeared;  they  formed  again  as 
the  Journeyman  Cordwainers  two  years  later,  and  existed  until  the 
conspiracy  trials  of  1806.  They  conducted  in  1799  a  ten  weeks'  strike, 
the  first  "organized"  strike  on  record.  A  Typographical  Society  was 
formed  in  New  York  in  1794,  and  persisted  with  interruptions.4  Various 
other  bodies  are  recorded  which  limited  themselves  strictly  to  endeavor- 
ing to  preserve  wages  and  shorten  hours.  The  weapon  was  always  the 

1  Pennsylvanian,  Jan.  9,  1834. 

2  Commons,  op.  cit.,  I,  214. 

3  Ibid.,  I,  109. 
*  Ibid.,  I,  109. 


60  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

turn-out;  the  immediate  aim  was  to  prevent  a  reduction  of  wages,  to 
protest  at  an  invasion  of  customary  and  therefore  "right"  standards. 
The  workers  would  be  notified  that  a  reduction  in  wages  would  take 
place,  and  the  immediate  response  would  be  an  indignation  meeting, 
usually  culminating  in  a  disorderly  quitting  of  work  and  a  refusal  to 
come  back  save  at  the  old  wages.  There  was  no  reasoned  theory  as  to 
why  the  men  should  receive  what  they  had  always  been  receiving; 
there  was  merely  a  feeling  of  outrage  that  time-honored  customs  were 
being  violated  by  the  new  masters,  with  perhaps  a  connecting  of  the 
phenomena  with  the  "monopolists"  and  the  holders  of  United  States 
Bank  bonds,  whom  political  agitation  and  election  campaigns  had 
taught  them  were  a  new  aristocracy  seeking  to  corrupt  the  purity  of 
American  democracy  and  introduce  aristocratic  elements  into  the 
country.  There  was  not  even  much  comprehension  of  the  position  of 
the  master  workman  at  the  mercy  of  the  rising  merchant  capitalists: 
and  there  was  not,  of  course,  the  remotest  notion  that  anything  was 
wrong  with  the  prevailing  economic  system.  Since  every  journeyman 
still  hoped  to  become  a  master,  assuredly  no  organization  of  journeymen 
would  advocate  any  measure  tending  to  make  the  position  they  hoped 
eventually  to  obtain  any  less  desirable;  but  nevertheless  it  was  not 
"right,"  with  all  of  the  unreasoning  obstinacy  and  clinging  to  traditions 
which  the  word  implies,  for  the  masters  to  interfere  with  established 
rates  of  wages. 

This  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  journeymen  is  further  evidenced  by 
the  other  method  which,  when  unsuccessful  by  turning  out  to  force 
the  masters  to  continue  their  old  wages,  they  employed  in  this  early 
period.  This  alternative  was  cooperation;  but  it  was  not  undertaken, 
as  in  the  forties,  with  any  idea  of  remodeling  the  social  structure.  It 
simply  meant  that  journeymen  who  felt  that  to  continue  at  their  low 
wages  was  impossible  and  who  had  not  the  means  to  set  up  immediately 
for  themselves  as  masters  would  band  together  to  make  up  the  necessary 
capital  between  them  and  thus  enable  each  other  to  enter  the  group  of 
masters.  And  when  they  had  entered  the  latter  group  they  announced 
that  they  would  show  the  public  how  it  was  possible  to  earn  profits  and 
at  the  same  time  to  preserve  the  old  scale  of  wages;  they  would  thus 
prove  that  the  masters  had  been  guilty  of  unfairness,  and  that  the  old 
system  if  carried  on  by  just  men  was  entirely  just.  Thus  in  1791  the 
Philadelphia  carpenters,  after  a  strike,  proposed  to  undertake  building 
operations  at  25%  less  than  the  current  rate,  as  a  rebuke  to  the  master 
carpenters;  and  in  1806,  when  the  outcome  of  the  cordwainers'  conspiracy 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  61 

trial  made  combinations  to  better  their  conditions  illegal,  the  shoe- 
makers of  Philadelphia  announced  that  they  themselves  would  open  a 
shoe  warehouse.  "They  have  been  compelled  to  resort  to  this  under- 
taking as  the  only  expedient  left  them  to  maintain  themselves  and  fami- 
lies from  the  most  abject  dependence.  They  have  had  no  other  alter- 
native but  adopting  this  course  or  submitting  to  employers  who  could 
take  away  or  lessen  their  wages  whenever  their  caprice  or  avarice  might 
prompt  them.  .  .  .  The  wages,  which  they  claimed  themselves,  and 
for  asking  which  they  were  punished,  they  intend  to  give  to  those  who 
may  be  employed  by  them.  They  have  therefore  engaged  the  best  work- 
men in  the  city,  and  will  spare  no  means  to  give  satisfaction  to  such  as 
will  favor  them  with  their  custom.  Their  work  shall  be  made  of  the 
very  best  materials  and  sold  at  the  most  moderate  prices."  l 

There  was  thus  in  all  these  early  sporadic  strikes  and  abortive  at- 
tempts at  organization  no  feeling  that  those  who  engaged  in  them  were 
in  any  way  modifying  the  dominant  theory  of  society  or  the  tenets  of 
American  democracy.  They  were  concerned  solely  with  hours  and 
wages,  with  conditions  so  traditional  as  to  have  become  of  the  nature 
of  rights,  and  the  journeymen  had  no  idea  that  the  public  were  in  any- 
wise implicated  or  needed  to  be  considered  in  this  private  altercation 
between  them  and  their  treacherous  masters.  True,  there  were  certain 
moneyed  interests  in  the  country  who  themselves  were  striving  to  de- 
stroy American  ideals,  and  to  fight  these  men  they  would  at  the  polls 
vote  the  Jeffersonian  ticket;  it  was  these  men  and  the  creatures  they  had 
placed  upon  the  bench  who  were  responsible  for  the  conspiracy  trials  and 
the  obvious  unfairness  of  the  court  in  those  episodes.  It  was  only  when 
the  early  strikers  thus  came  into  direct  conflict  with  the  courts  that 
they  felt  the  necessity  of  any  theoretical  defense  of  their  position,  which 
to  them  seemed  so  obviously  a  case  of  simple  justice.  Here  the  Jeffer- 
sonian party  some  to  their  rescue  with  its  powerful  organs,  like  the 
Philadelphia  Aurora,2  and  made  of  their  grievances  part  of  the  general 
outcry  against  the  commercial  Federalists.  This  support  by  the  great 
political  democracy  both  won  the  workers  all  the  more  closely  to  the 
Jeffersonian  ideals  and  precluded  any  independent  development  of 
social  or  political  policy. 

These  early  efforts  at  maintaining  their  position  hi  society  collapsed 
with  the  close  of  the  Napoleonic  wars;  English  merchants  dumped  upon 
the  American  markets  great  quantities  of  goods  they  had  been  storing 

1  Commons,  I,  129. 
1  Ibid,  1, 142. 


62  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

up,  and  well-nigh  destroyed  the  American  manufacturers  whose  business 
war  conditions  had  fostered.  Unemployment  was  the  order  of  the 
day;  crafts  employing  9672  workmen  in  1816  in  Philadelphia  three 
years  later  had  discharged  all  but  some  2000.  In  1819,  according  to 
Niles'  Register,  there  were  some  20,000  unemployed  in  Philadelphia, 
20,000  in  New  York,  and  almost  10,000  in  Baltimore.1  Those  trades  in 
which  organization  had  survived,  the  printers  and  the  cordwainers, 
were  too  busy  endeavoring  to  find  places  for  their  menbers  to  bother 
about  the  conditions  under  which  they  worked  or  their  social  position. 
The  printers  had  established  benefit  funds,  and  by  this  means  managed  to 
keep  above  water;  the  cordwainers,  whose  power  had  depended  solely 
on  strikes,  were  forced  to  disband. 

But  this  depression  had  by  1820  reached  its  lowest  point;  from  that 
time  on  there  was  a  rapid  improvement  in  conditions.  But  the  merchant 
capitalists  had  taken  the  advantage  of  the  breakdown  of  all  opposition 
on  the  part  of  the  laborers  to  extend  their  influence  over  the  whole 
country;  and  in  this  they  were  aided  by  the  great  public  improvements 
hi  transportation.  The  Erie  canal  was  built  in  1825,  and  was  speedily 
followed  by  many  others;  steamboat  transportation  had  extended  to 
the  vast  network  of  rivers  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  All  these  extensions 
of  the  market  opened  the  way  for  the  merchant  with  a  plentiful  supply 
of  credit  and  capital,  while  they  at  the  same  time  led  to  a  much  keener 
competition  than  had  hitherto  obtained;  for  the  merchant  capitalist 
not  only  had  to  compete  with  the  English  markets  and  goods,  but  was 
exposed  to  the  attacks  of  all  those  within  the  widened  transportation 
area.  In  the  absence  of  strong  opposition,  his  labor  cost  was  that  item 
of  his  expenditures  most  easy  to  cut  down.  He  turned  eagerly  to  the 
employment  of  convicts  and  cheap  labor,  and  he  so  dominated  the  market 
that  he  gradually  came  to  force  over  to  his  side  the  small  manufacturers, 
the  master  workmen,  who  were  more  and  more  clearly  differentiated 
from  the  journeymen  or  laborers. 

These  prosperous  times,  moreover,  naturally  caused  a  rise  in  prices, 
and  the  workmen  soon  were  once  more  forced  to  organize  to  protect 
their  position;  this  time  they  demanded  higher  wages,  but  what  they 
were  in  reality  doing  was  to  prevent  inroads  upon  their  real  wages. 
Hence  the  early  twenties  display  once  more  on  a  more  extended  scale 
the  same  characteristics  of  unorganized  strikes  giving  place  to  more 
permanent  organizations:  this  time  other  trades  enter  the  lists,  such  as 
the  weavers,  painters,  hatters,  stone-cutters,  nailers,  in  addition  to  the 

1  Commons,  I,  135. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  63 

older  printers,  shoemakers,  carpenters,  and  tailors.  By  1825  this  gen- 
eral prosperity  and  the  consequent  success  of  the  labor  movement  had 
reached  its  height;1  men,  feeling  that  there  was  some  prospect  of  hope 
for  the  alleviation  of  their  conditions,  began  to  think  in  terms  larger 
than  their  individual  grievances;  those  who  stood  at  the  top  of  the  in- 
dustrial scale,  the  skilled  mechanics,  came  to  have  a  feeling  of  social  in- 
terest in  advancing  the  interests  of  the  less  fortunate  workers.  The  in- 
dustrial class  had  largely  grown,  for  this  was  the  period  in  which  our 
cities  were  making  their  most  remarkable  advances.  Those  laborers 
who  had  been  somewhat  successful  in  organizing  were  led  to  reflect  upon 
the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  their  existence,  and  thus  there  arose  in 
the  late  twenties  the  first  attempts  at  what  could  be  called  specifically 
workers '  theories  or  conceptions  of  society  and  of  their  place  in  it. 

It  was  the  extension  of  the  franchise  in  the  twenties  that  gave  the 
impetus  to  the  new  attitude.  Men  were  just  beginning  to  realize  that 
the  old  Jeffersonian  party  had  hardly  kept  true  to  its  original  ideals. 
Success  in  1800  had  proved  disastrous  to  it,  and  had  led,  not  directly 
to  the  Jeffersonian  ideal  of  the  agricultural  community,  but  rather  to 
the  substitution  of  a  planting  for  a  commercial  aristocracy.  Moreover, 
the  merchants  had  by  this  time  had  opportunity  to  leave  the  old  Fed- 
eralist party  and  win  the  new  Republicans  over  to  their  own  side.  All 
things  considered,  the  time  was  ripe  for  another  recrudescence  of  the 
democratic  urge,  and  another  temporary  setback  to  the  forces  of  ine- 
quality. This,  in  fact,  was  the  especial  mission  of  Jacksonian  democ- 
racy; and  it  was  but  natural  that  this  new  revolt  on  the  part  of  the  dom- 
inant small  farmers  should  find  peculiar  and  individual  expression 
amongst  the  laboring  classes  of  the  seaboard  cities.  Fully  alive  at  last  to 
the  economic  inequalities  that  the  new  order  had  forced  upon  them,  they 
were  finally  aroused,  partly  by  the  responsibilities  of  full  citizenship, 
partly  by  the  new  feeling  of  solidarity  with  their  fellows,  to  the  failure 
of  the  old  parties  to  bring  about  actual  social  equality.  Hence  in  the 
years  1827-1831  we  notice  a  sudden  broadening  of  interest  and  scope, 
on  the  part  of  laboring  men  everywhere,  the  formation  of  central  un- 
ions in  the  large  cities,  and  the  rapid  passing  over  of  these  unions  into 
politics.  Everywhere  there  is  the  claim  of  the  labor  organization,  no 
longer  to  be  merely  fighting  for  its  own  individual  rights,  but  to  stand 
for  the  true  interests  of  America  and  the  American  democracy.  Against 
the  merchant  capitalists  and  the  new  factory  owners,  the  bankers  and 
money  interests  of  the  cities,  the  new  movement  poses  as  the  champion 

1  Commons,  I,  157. 


64  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

of  the  older  ideal  of  complete  equality,  and  it  carries  that  ideal  to  fur- 
ther limits  than  had  before  been  necessary.  It  feels  that  something 
must  be  wrong  with  American  institutions  if  they  can  be  so  perverted 
from  the  ideals  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  And  it  eagerly 
sets  to  work  to  destroy  the  most  obvious  abuses  which  in  its  opinion 
can  be  remedied  by  legislation.  Throughout  this  period  of  four  years, 
we  must  not  forget,  the  mechanics  were  busy  in  their  separate  trade 
groups  maintaining  their  economic  rights;  consequently  the  motives 
and  aims  which  appear  in  the  federations  and  the  political  parties  do 
not  supplant,  but  merely  supplement  the  old  method  of  the  turn-out. 
And  when  the  object  of  the  workers  is  achieved,  when  they  have  en- 
grafted their  demands  upon  the  platforms  of  the  regular  parties,  and 
the  Jacksonians  have  arisen  to  combine  the  small  minority  of  the  cities 
with  the  immense  group  of  the  farmers  and  backwoodsmen,  they  re- 
turn once  more  to  the  pursuit  of  their  economic  ends  confident  in  the 
substantial  achievement  of  the  demands  they  have  made,  yet  somehow 
having  failed  to  secure  that  reversion  to  primitive  equality  they  felt 
would  of  necessity  follow. 

The  characteristic  note  of  this  second  stage  of  the  mechanics'  labor 
movement  is  the  demand  it  makes,  not  so  much  for  economic  equality 
and  security— this  had  inspired  the  first  stage,  and  this  was  to  domin- 
ate the  last — but  for  social  and  political  equality.  It  was  not  a  protest 
of  the  wage  worker  against  the  employer,  but  rather  of  the  producer 
against  the  capitalist,  of  the  poor  against  the  rich;  it  was  the  last  at- 
tempt to  realize  the  ideal  of  Jefferson  by  a  direct  appeal  to  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Revolution,  to  destroy  the  power  of  that  sinister  force  of 
capitalism  which  had  been  the  bane  of  the  Democrats  from  Washing- 
ton's day  down.  When  we  next  behold  a  labor  movement,  we  find  in- 
dustry accepted  and  the  doctrine  of  natural  rights  supplanted  by  other 
and  more  efficacious  theoretical  considerations. 

The  second  and  broadly  social  phase  of  the  mechanics'  movement 
arose  almost  simultaneously  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia, — in  the 
latter  city  during  the  summer  of  1827.  Springing  out  of  an  unsuccess- 
ful attempt  of  the  carpenters  to  establish  a  ten-hour  day  with  more  reg- 
ular employment,  it  created  first  a  central  union  of  trade  societies,  and 
then,  as  the  demand  of  leisure,  the  first  requisite  of  equal  citizenship, 
called  up  its  second,  popular  education,  it  passed  into  a  workingman  's 
party.  The  economic  demand  was  the  ten-hour  day,  the  political,  free 
schools.  It  is  significant  of  the  spirit  of  this  Philadelphia  movement 
that  it  was  ushered  in  by  a  pamphlet  on  education,  and  that  its  most 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  65 

enduring  monument  has  been  the  Mechanics'  Library.  "It  is  true," 
said  the  pamphlet,  "in  this  favored  nation  we  enjoy  the  inestimable 
blessing  of  *  universal  suffrage/  and  constituting  as  we  everywhere  do, 
a  very  great  majority,  we  have  the  power  to  choose  our  own  legislators, 
but  .  .  .  this  blessing  .  .  .  can  be  of  no  further  benefit  to  us  than  as 
we  possess  sufficient  knowledge  to  make  a  proper  use  of  it."  1  And  later 
it  was  claimed  that  "real  liberty  and  equality  have  no  foundation  but 
in  universal  and  equal  instruction."  2  "When  the  committee  contem- 
plate their  own  condition,  and  that  of  the  great  mass  of  their  fellow- 
laborers;  when  they  look  around  on  the  glaring  inequality  of  society, 
they  are  constrained  to  believe  that  until  the  means  of  equal  in- 
struction shall  be  equally  secured  to  all,  liberty  is  but  an  unmeaning 
word,  whose  substance,  to  be  realized,  must  first  be  planted  by  an  equal 
education  and  a  proper  training  in  the  minds,  hi  the  habits,  in  the  man- 
ners, and  in  the  feelings  of  the  community."  3  And  it  can  hardly  be 
maintained  that  a  movement  in  any  sense  failed  that  resulted  directly 
in  the  establishment  of  our  system  of  popular  schools. 

In  June  the  carpenters  turned  out  for  the  ten-hour  day.  "  We  believe," 
they  announced,  "  that  a  man  of  common  constitution  is  unable  to  per- 
form more  than  ten  hours'  faithful  labor  in  one  day,  and  that  men  in  the 
habit  of  laboring  from  sunrise  until  dark  are  generally  subject  to  nervous 
and  other  complaints  arising  from  continued  hard  labor,  and  (we)  believe 
that  all  men  have  a  just  right,  derived  from  their  Creator,  to  have  suffi- 
cient time  in  each  day  for  the  cultivation  of  their  mind  and  for  self- 
improvement;  therefore,  resolved,  that  we  think  ten  hours  industriously 
employed  are  sufficient  for  a  day's  labor."  4  The  masters  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  having  all  their  work  done  in  the  long  summer  days,  and  leaving 
the  journeymen  idle  in  winter;  and  the  strike  was  in  part  caused  by  the 
desire  to  force  the  masters  to  employ  them  all  the  year  round.  Thus  early 
the  characteristic  desire  of  the  worker  for  continuity  of  employment 
makes  its  appearance.  The  carpenters  received  the  support  and  sym- 
pathy of  the  house-painters,  the  bricklayers,  and  other  trade  societies, 
and  it  was  soon  determined  to  unite  in  one  body  for  mutual  aid  and  pro- 
tection. Thus  was  born  in  the  autumn  of  1827  the  first  union  of  crafts — 
the  Mechanics'  Union  of  Trade  Societies — as  a  protest  against  the  degra- 
dation of  the  worker. 

1  Mechanics'  Free  Press,  June  21,  1828. 

2  Ibid.,  Jan.  21,  1829. 

3  Working  Man's  Advocate,  March  6,  1830. 

4  Democratic  Press,  June  14,  1827. 


1 

r 


66  The  Problem  of  Grqup  Responsibility 

The  mechanics  felt  that  in  uniting  with  other  trades*  they  were  tran- 
scending the  limits  of  individual  interest  and  were  acting  as  trustees 
for  the  common  welfare.  "  Believing  that  whatever  is  conducive  to  the 
real  prosperity  of  the  greatest  numbers  must  in  the  nature  of  things 
conduce  to  the  happiness  of  all,  we  cannot  desire  to  injure,  nor  take  the 
smallest  unjust  advantage,  either  of  that  class  of  the  community  called 
employers  or  of  any  other  portion.  .  .  .  If  as  members  of  the  community 
they  (the  capitalists)  are  desirous  to  prosper,  in  vain  will  they  expect  to 
succeed,  unless  the  great  body  of  the  community  is  kept  in  a  healthy, 
vigorous,  and  prosperous  condition.  .  .  .  The  real  object,  therefore,  of 
this  association  is,  ...  to  promote,  equally,  the  happiness,  prosperity, 
and  welfare  of  the  whole  community — to  aid  in  conferring  a  due  and  full 
proportion  of  that  invaluable  promoter  of  happiness,  leisure,  upon  all  its 
useful  members;  and  to  assist,  hi  conjunction  with  such  other  institutions 
of  this  nature  as  shall  hereafter  be  formed  throughout  the  union,  in 
establishing  a  just  balance  of  power,  both  mental,  moral,  political,  and 
scientific,  between  all  the  various  classes  and  individuals  which  constitute 
society  at  large."  *  There  hovered  before  the  workingmen  the  spectre  of 
European  conditions,  fondly  believed  to  be  forever  banished  by  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  they  undertook  the  task  of  preserving 
the  old  America  of  liberty  and  equality.  "  We  are  fast  approaching  those 
extremes  of  wealth  and  extravagance  on  the  one  hand,"  they  declared, 
"and  ignorance,  poverty,  and  wretchedness  on  the  other,  which  will 
eventually  terminate  in  those  oppressive  and  unnatural  distinctions  which 
exist  hi  the  corrupt  governments  of  the  old  world."  2 

And  quite  naturally,  in  view  of  the  social  and  political  aims  of  the 
movement,  it  turned  to  political  action.  The  broadly  social  nature  of  its 
program,  hi  fact,  was  the  source  both  of  its  strength  and  its  weakness; 
for  it  enabled  the  Jacksonian  Democrats  to  take  up  its  measures  and 
incorporate  them  into  their  platform,  and  thus  they  soon  passed  into  the 
common  heritage  of  American  institutions.  The  workmen  thus  gamed 
their  immediate  demands,  but  only  at  the  expense  of  their  own  organiza- 
tion and  of  their  most  vital  economic  interests.  After  electing  a  number 
of  candidates  who  had  also  been  endorsed  by  other  parties  in  four-cor- 
nered fights  in  1828  and  1829,  the  Working  Men's  Party  disintegrated 
after  its  defeat  in  1820.  But  the  ends  it  sought  were  soon  achieved;  and 
the  importance  of  the  movement  lies  in  the  light  it  throws  on  the  nature 
of  the  ideals  of  the  mechanics.  Rather  than  wonder  at  the  generally 

1  Mechanics'  Free  Press,  Oct.  25,  1828. 
*Ibid,  May  i,  1830. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  67 

interested  actions  of  trade  unions  when  performing  their  functions  as 
business  organizations,  the  observer  should  rather  marvel  at  the  appar- 
ently unquenchable  zeal  of  the  worker  to  act  on  occasion  directly  against 
his  own  immediate  advantage  in  following  now  one,  now  another,  scheme 
for  reforming  society  at  large. 

The  chief  aim  of  the  Working  Men's  Party,  and  the  one  upon  which  the 
campaign  of  1829  and  1830  was  based,  was  the  establishment  of  free 
schools  for  all.  But  in  addition  they  protested  against  the  banking 
monopolies  and  the  issuance  of  banknotes,  the  lottery  system,  compulsory 
service  in  the  militia,  and  other  blemishes  upon  the  purity  of  American 
democracy.  All  these  were  measures  which  appealed  to  the  poorer  por- 
tions of  the  community,  indeed,  but  they  had  little  direct  connection  with 
trade  union  activities.  These  latter  were  steadily  progressing;  and  when 
the  political  party  collapsed,  carrying  with  it  the  Mechanics'  Union,  the 
trade  societies  were  left  to  pursue  their  economic  policies  and  to  unite 
again  on  another  basis. 

The  political  phase  of  the  mechanics'  movement  in  New  York  was 
marked  by  much  dissension  between  the  various  radical  leaders  who 
placed  themselves  at  its  head  and  gave  it  the  appearance,  at  any  rate,  of 
supporting  "  agrarianism  "  or  the  equal  redistribution  of  land.  It  sprang, 
like  the  Philadelphia  movement,  out  of  a  ten-hour  agitation,  this  time 
against  the  lengthening  of  a  day  already  won,  and  at  bottom,  despite  sur- 
face differences,  it  was  dominated  by  the  same  motives  of  protection, 
equality,  and  education  for  citizenship.  On  April  23,  1829,  a  meeting  of 
mechanics,  called  to  protest  against  encroachment  on  the  ten-hour  day, 
was  induced  by  Thomas  Skidmore,  a  machinist  and  an  earnest  follower  of 
Tom  Paine,  and  somewhat  of  a  philosophical  radical,  to  adopt  resolutions 
questioning  the  right  of  private  property.  They  are  by  no  means  repre- 
sentative of  popular  ideas  in  their  conclusions,  but  in  their  mode  of  reason- 
ing they  show  the  easy  connection  between  the  national  philosophy  of  the 
social  contract  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  "rights"  of 
the  workers.  "  Resolved,  that  all  men  hold  their  property  by  the  consent 
of  the  great  mass  of  the  community,  and  by  no  other  title;  that  a  great 
portion  of  the  latter  hold  no  property  at  all;  that  in  society  they  have 
given  up  what  in  a  state  of  nature  they  would  have  equal  right  to  with 
others;  and  that  in  lieu  thereof,  they  have  the  right  to  an  equal  participa- 
tion with  others,  through  the  means  of  their  labor,  of  the  enjoyments  of  a 
comfortable  subsistence.  Therefore,  resolved,  that  if  those  in  whose 
power  it  is  to  give  employment  withhold  such  employment,  or  will  give  it 
only  in  such  a  manner  as  to  exact  excessive  toil,  and  at  a  price  which  does 


68  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

not  give  a  just  return,  such  persons  contravene  the  first  law  of  society, 
and  subject  themselves  to  the  displeasure  of  a  just  community."  l 

Five  days  later  a  large  meeting  was  held  which  appointed  a  Committee 
of  Fifty  to  consult  and  adopted  resolutions  against  the  eleven-hour  day, 
among  them  one  as  follows:  "Resolved,  that  in  the  first  formation  of 
government,  no  man  gives  up  to  others  his  original  right  of  soil,  and  be- 
comes a  weaver,  a  builder,  or  other  mechanic  or  laborer,  without  receiving 
a  guarantee  that  reasonable  toil  shall  enable  him  to  live  as  comfortable  as 
others."  2  In  reality,  Skidmore  only  went  a  little  further  than  the  major- 
ity of  democrats  in  developing  the  theory  of  agricultural  equality,  and 
in  just  the  same  direction.  On  Oct.  19  the  Committee  of  Fifty  submitted 
a  report  that  advocated  the  abolition  of  debts  and  the  division  of  all 
property.  This  report  was  hurriedly  adopted,  and  served  as  the  basis  of 
a  new  party  which  had  considerable  success  in  the  ensuing  election.  But 
on  December  29,  another  large  meeting  dissolved  the  Committee  of 
Fifty,  which  had  become  involved  in  political  quarrels,  and  rejecting  its 
report  resolved  that  it  had  "no  desire  or  intention  of  disturbing  the  rights 
of  property  in  individuals  or  in  the  public."  3  The  mechanics,  in  fact,  so 
soon  as  they  fully  comprehended  them  showed  violent  antipathy  to 
Skidmore's  agrarian  views,  and  they  substituted  for  them  demands  for 
general  education  and  the  abolition  of  the  lien  and  militia  laws,  much  hi 
the  spirit  of  the  Philadelphia  movement.  Skidmore's  book,  The  Rights  of 
Man  to  Property,  had  meanwhile  appeared,  and  on  second  thought  his 
communism  appeared  incompatible  with  the  American  ideals  for  which 
the  mechanics  above  all  stood.  He  himself  accordingly  withdrew  from 
the  party  with  some  followers  and  started  another  of  his  own. 

The  attention  of  the  Working  Men's  Party  was  now  turned  to  educa- 
tion, and  soon  a  new  source  of  friction  was  there  discovered.  Robert 
Dale  Owen,  son  of  the  famous  English  socialist,  desired  to  establish 
"State  Guardianship"  schools,  in  which  the  children  would  be  fed  and 
clothed  as  well  as  educated  at  public  expense;  he  believed  social  regenera- 
tion was  possible  only  when  the  children  were  caught  while  still  very 
young.  "Public  education,"  said  the  advocates  of  this  plan,  "  will 
regenerate  America  in  one  generation.  It  will  make  but  one  class  out  of 
the  many  that  now  envy  and  despise  each  other.  It  will  make  American 
citizens  what  they  once  declared  themselves,  'Free  and  Equal. ' "  4  The 

1  New  York  Morning  Courier,  April  25,  1827. 
1  Morning  Courier,  April  30,  1829. 

3  Working  Man's  Advocate,  Jan.  16,  1830. 

4  Ibid.,  June  19,  1830. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  69 

party  split  again  on  this  issue,  and  there  thus  being  three  factions  in  1830 
it  of  course  lost.  Thereafter  the  movement,  as  in  Philadelphia,  was 
absorbed  into  the  regular  political  parties,  and  the  workers,  their  social 
and  legal  reforms  either  accomplished  or  well  on  the  way  toward  accom- 
plishment, turned  their  attention  once  more  to  their  purely  economic 
grievances  and  their  trade  society  activities.  The  nineteenth  century 
faith  in  universal  education,  to  solve  every  problem  of  political  democ- 
racy, burned  strong  within  them;  this  achieved,  they  waited  confidently 
the  restoration  of  the  older  colonial  equality. 

The  Working  Men's  Parties  in  Philadelphia  and  in  New  York  were  only 
the  outstanding  examples  in  a  movement  that  spread  everywhere 
throughout  the  eastern  and  northern  parts  of  the  country.  The  aims 
were  fundamentally  the  same:  the  establishment  of  free  and  popular 
education,  and  the  removal  of  those  political  restrictions  that  bore 
heavily  upon  the  lower  portions  of  the  community.  The  strike  had  little 
place;  when  employed  it  was  to  secure  or  maintain  the  ten-hour  day. 
And  the  argument  for  universal  popular  education  was  nearly  always  the 
civic  one:  popular  sovereignty  demanded  popular  knowledge,  together 
with  the  natural  rights  theory;  an  equal  education  would  of  necessity 
secure  equal  ability.  It  was  the  orthodox  liberal  theory  of  democracy; 
the  workers  merely  insisted  on  removing  it  from  the  realms  of  theory  and 
actually  putting  it  into  practice,  and  giving  a  trial  to  the  panacea  which 
the  official  philosophers  were  everywhere  proposing. 

In  New  England  the  movement  took  the  interesting  and  peculiar  form 
of  a  general  labor  association  with  political  and  social  aims — a  form 
destined  to  be  revived  fifty  years  later  by  the  Knights  of  Labor.  It  was 
neither  an  industrial  or  a  trade  society;  it  was  not  even  limited  to  wage- 
earners,  but  included  all  those  who  would  naturally  be  opposed  to  "privi- 
lege and  monopoly,"  farmers,  mechanics,  small  tradesmen,  and  the  new 
class  of  factory  workers.  Like  the  other  movements  it  started  in  a  ten- 
hour  strike,  which  led  to  the  calling  of  a  convention  and  the  formation  of 
the  New  England  Association  of  Farmers,  Mechanics,  and  Other  Work- 
ingmen,  in  1832.  Its  chief  aim  was  the  establishment  of  universal  educa- 
tion as  the  means  of  raising  and  restoring  the  social  status  of  these  lower 
sections  of  the  community;  the  rising  factories  of  New  England  are 
reflected  in  the  great  emphasis  laid  upon  child  labor  and  the  education  of 
factory  children.  "Children  should  not  be  allowed  to  labor  in  the 
factories,"  it  was  resolved,  "from  morning  till  night,  without  any  time  for 
healthy  recreation  and  mental  culture;  as  it  not  only  endangers  their  own 
well-being  and  health,  but  ensures  to  the  country  the  existence  of  a 


70  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

population,  in  the  approaching  generation,  unfitted  to  enjoy  the  privileges 
and  to  exercise  the  duties  of  freemen  and  citizens."  1  The  New  England 
Association  naturally  turned  to  politics,  waging  campaigns  hi  1832,  1833, 
and  1834,  and  as  naturally  was  absorbed  by  the  Jacksonians.  Its  appeal 
was  too  general  to  gather  much  strength,  and  the  factories  were  not  yet 
organized  sufficiently  to  make  them  good  field  for  labor  developments. 

The  second  phase  of  the  mechanics'  movement  lasted  in  general  some 
two  or  three  years;  but  even  before  it  had  entirely  died  out  there  was  a 
sharp  reaction  away  from  the  political  and  social  point  of  view  to  strictly 
economic  associations — to  what  later  came  to  be  known  as  "pure  and 
simple  trade  unionism."  The  third  and  final  stage  saw  the  great  increase 
in  strength  and  number  of  the  craft  societies,  and  the  successive  federa- 
tion of  these  strong  units  into  city  and  finally  into  a  national  trades' 
union.  The  workers  had  at  last  discovered  where  their  immediate  ad- 
vantage lay;  they  organized,  not  on  some  theory  of  education,  but  on 
sound  business  principles.  They  had  sought  to  bring  back  the  old  colonial 
society  of  the  farmer  and  the  settler,  and  to  transplant  to  the  city  the 
intelligent  and  self-respecting  farmer  of  the  Revolution.  When  they 
found  that  both  merchants  and  farmers  were  too  much  interested  in  their 
own  advancement  to  care  anything  about  restoring  this  happy  state  of 
affairs,  they  fell  back  upon  the  methods  they  had  never  forgotten  nor 
allowed  to  fall  wholly  into  disuse,  and  set  about  improving  their  immedi- 
ate condition  with  little  thought  for  anything  else.  National  politics,  too, 
were  just  entering  upon  their  most  exciting  period,  and  industrialization 
had  not  yet  advanced  sufficiently  to  make  any  workingmens'  question  a 
national  issue. 

The  turn  of  the  tide  is  shown  in  the  changed  character  of  the  oldest 
trade  societies.  The  New  York  Typographical  Society,  since  its  founda- 
tion in  1809  largely  a  benevolent  society,  was  in  1831  supplanted  by  the 
New  York  Typographical  Association,  whose  new  purpose  was  "to 
elevate  the  character  and  advance  the  interests  of  the  profession,  by 
maintaining  a  just  and  uniform  scale  of  prices  for  their  labor."  The 
Philadelphia  society,  founded  in  1802,  was  also  superseded  in  1833. 
Other  societies,  like  the  Pennsylvania  Society  of  Journeymen  Cabinet- 
Makers  in  1829  and  the  New  York  Benevolent  Society  of  Journeymen 
Tailors  in  1833,  revised  their  constitutions  and  took  up  strictly  trade 
union  activities.  The  merchant  capitalist  was,  with  the  increased  mar- 
kets both  for  goods  and  for  labor  opened  up  by  the  transportation  projects 

1  Carey's  Select  Excerpta,  IV,  435. 

2  Stewart,  Documentary  Hist,  of  the  Early  Organizations  of  Printers. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  71 

of  the  twenties  and  thirties,  constantly  driven  into  keener  and  keener 
competition,  and  constantly  seeking  to  reduce  his  labor  expenses  by  apply- 
ing to  women,  young  apprentices,  and  convicts  as  a  source  of  cheap  work. 
Moreover,  the  years  from  1834  to  1837  were  marked  by  wild  speculation, 
inflated  currency,  and  a  consequent  rise  in  the  prices  of  all  commodi- 
ties. Flour  went  up  from  five  to  twelve  dollars  a  barrel  from  1834  to 
1837;  pork,  from  thirteen  to  thirty  dollars;  rents  were  enormously  in- 
creased. As  a  consequence  of  all  these  conditions,  the  workers'  real 
wages,  even  when  there  were  no  general  wages  reductions,  were  con- 
tinually being  lowered.  The  standard  of  living  was  rapidly  sinking; 
there  was  no  longer  time  to  trust  to  the  beneficent  effects  of  universal 
education  or  to  the  remote  results  of  legislative  action.  Trade  societies 
and  turn-outs  would  alone  be  able  to  meet  the  crisis.  From  1833  to  1836 
the  number  of  such  societies  in  Philadelphia  alone  increased  from  21  to 
53,  from  29  to  52  in  New  York,  and  in  other  cities  in  proportion.1  In 
1834,  it  is  estimated  there  were  some  26,000  organized  workmen  in 
the  country;  by  1836,  almost  3oo,ooo.2  Almost  every  skilled  craft  was 
represented. 

It  was  natural  that  the  various  crafts  in  a  single  city  should  unite 
for  mutual  support  and  protection,  and  thus  grew  up  the  "trades'  unions" 
so  characteristic  of  the  time.  The  first  was  formed  in  New  York  in 
August,  1833;  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and  Washington  followed  the 
same  year.  Boston  formed  one  in  1834,  and  by  1836  there  were  at 
least  thirteen  trades'  unions,  as  far  west  as  Louisville. 3  These  new  unions 
fell  over  one  another  to  repudiate  all  connection  with  the  earlier  working 
men's  parties,  and  with  the  various  suspicions  of  agrarianism,  atheism,  and 
men's  polygamy  which  the  leaders  had  drawn  down  upon  them,  particu- 
larly in  New  York.  In  Philadelphia  the  union  declared  in  its  constitution 
that  "no  party,  political,  or  religious  questions  shall  at  any  time  be 
agitated  in,  or  acted  upon,  by  this  union.  "4  Time  and  again  the  various 
unions  were  forced  to  repudiate  political  meetings  called  in  their  name 
by  ambitious  politicians.  They  remained,  however,  save  in  Baltimore, 
steadfast  in  their  resolution  not  to  turn  to  "panaceas  or  crack-brained 
schemes,"  and  to  devote  all  their  energies  to  questions  of  wages  and 
hours. 

The  New  York  Trades'  Union  originated  in  the  combined  support 

1  National  Laborer,  Nov.  12,  1836;  Commons,  351,  352, 1. 

2  Ibid.,  June  4,  1836. 

3  Commons,  I,  360. 


72  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

some  fifteen  trades  gave  to  a  strike  of  carpenters  for  higher  wages  in 
1833.  The  printers  took  the  initiative,  and  the  first  president,  Ely 
Moore,  belonged  to  that  craft.  The  records  of  the  meetings  reveal 
little  discussion  save  over  the  difficulties  and  turn-outs  the  various  mem- 
bers were  engaged  in.  The  suppression  of  convict  labor,  in  which  the 
president  took  an  especial  interest,  marks  the  only  other  issue  brought 
up.  It  was  not  that  the  workers  had  lost  all  interest  in  the  larger  schemes 
of  the  preceding  years,  but  rather  that  they  had  learned  not  to  intrude 
them  into  union  matters.  Their  restraint  was  crowned  by  distinguished 
success  in  raising  wages  until  they  became  involved  in  a  conspiracy  case. 

The  Trades'  Union  of  Pennsylvania  was  formed  in  the  summer  of 
1833  of  factory  workers  around  Philadelphia,  as  a  protest  against  a  20 
per  cent  wage  reduction.  This  is  the  first  example  of  factory  operatives 
organizing,  and  also  the  first  direct  attack  upon  the  factory  system  and 
warning  against  English  conditions;  but  it  proved  abortive,  as  did  all 
attempts  at  organizing  these  early  factory  workers.  It  was  succeeded 
by  the  Trades  Union  of  the  City  and  County  of  Philadelphia,  on  the  New 
York  model.  At  first  made  up  exclusively  of  mechanics,  it  later  took 
in  factory  hands  and  unskilled  labor.  It  was  exceedingly  successful, 
having  by  1836,  under  its  able  president,  John  Ferral,  some  48  trade 
societies.1  More  than  half  of  these  had  struck  and  won  their  demands 
in  the  last  six  months;  and  the  union  was  chiefly  concerned  with  the 
support  of  various  authorized  strikes. 

These  numerous  strikes  were  from  1833  to  1835  largely  directed  at  the 
ten-hour  day,  demanded  on  the  familiar  grounds  of  citizenship.  This 
generally  achieved,  the  workers  turned  to  wage  increases.  The  old 
basis  of  a  natural  right  to  social  equality,  the  traditional  ideology  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  still  formed  the  basis  of  their  justi- 
fication. The  spirit  lying  back  of  this  movement  nowhere  finds  better 
expression  than  in  this  statement  of  the  Philadelphia  cordwainers,  in 


"The  Declaration  of  Independence  'holds  these  truths  to  be  self- 
evident,  that  all  men  are  created  free  and  equal,'  how  can  we  be  free 
when  we  have  no  control  over  the  prices  of  the  only  commodity  we 
have  to  dispose  of  —  our  labor?.  .  .  True,  we  assemble  on  the  Fourth  of 
July  and  mingle  our  shouts  of  approbation  as  we  hear  the  invaluable 
Declaration  of  Independence  read,  —  we  may  join  the  multitude  in 
paying  fulsome  adulation  to  some  popular  orator  as  he  descants  on  the 
blessings  we  enjoy  in  the  land  of  Liberty,  and  flatter  ourselves  for  the 
1  Pennsylvania,  Feb.  4,  1836. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  73 

time,  that  what  he  says  is  true,  that  we  do  enjoy  to  the  fullest  extent 
the  liberties  the  blood  of  our  Revolutionary  fathers  bequeathed  to  us: 
but  when  we  leave  the  festive  board,  and  return  to  our  humble  homes; 
when  the  thrilling  accents  of  eloquence  have  ceased  to  vibrate  on  the 
ear,  and  sober  reason  resumes  her  sway — then,  fellow-mechanics,  do 
we  awaken  to  the  sad  reality  of  our  condition — then  is  the  flimsy  veil 
which  blinded  us  to  our  true  interest,  drawn  aside,  and  we  behold  our- 
selves in  our  real  characters,  humble,  dependent,  and  miserable — we 
behold  ourselves,  perhaps,  the  slaves  of  some  haughty  tyrant,  who  to 
augment  his  already  overflowing  coffers,  is  perhaps  at  that  very  moment, 
framing  some  pretext  for  reducing  our  scanty  wages;  and  secretly  re- 
joicing, that  the  dollar  we  have  spent  on  our  country's  natal  day,  enables 
him  the  better  to  accomplish  his  object.  Let  us  then  set  about  making 
ourselves  free  indeed — before  we  boast  of  our  freedom — let  us  take 
measures  to  enjoy,  and  secure  the  freedom  after  it  is  obtained. "  1 

In  less  eloquent  but  no  less  indignant  words,  the  Boston  carpenters 
make  the  same  complaint.  "  If  our  employers  had  used  us  like  men 
and  had  not  been  so  overbearing,  we  should  not  have  spent  so  much 
time  in  having  our  grievances  redressed.  We  were  all  born  free  and  equal, 
and  we  do  not  ask  to  have  our  grievances  redressed  as  a  favor,  but  we 
demand  it  as  a  right. " 2  Something  is  wrong  with  American  society, 
but  the  workman  is  not  quite  sure  what  it  is.  The  good  old  days  were 
never  like  this. 

From  the  organization  of  city  trades'  unions  it  was  but  a  step  to  a 
national  Trades'  Union.  The  New  York  union  accordingly  called  in 
March,  1834,  for  delegates  from  every  union  to  assemble  "  to  advance\ 
the  moral  and  intellectual  dignity  of  the  laboring  classes,  sustain  their  j 
pecuniary  interests,  succor  the  oppressed,  and  by  all  just  means  maintain 
the  honor  and  the  respectability  of  the  merchanical  profession. "  3  When 
they  gathered  from  six  unions  under  Ely  Moore,  they  declared  their 
aim  to  be  "  to  prevent  a  reduction  of  wages  and  secure  a  proper  number 
of  hours  for  labor. "  There  ensued  a  vigorous  debate  on  the  question  of 
political  action,  finally  decided  in  the  negative;  and  the  union  contented 
itself  with  advisory  and  educational  powers.  It  discussed  the  factory 
system,  the  conditions  of  the  Lowell  women  operatives,  and  other 
similar  matters,  and  resolved  to  attempt  the  organization  of  the  factory 
workers.  During  the  four  years  of  its  existence  it  did  valuable  propaganda 

1  Pennsylvanian,  April  4,  1835. 

2  Independent  Chronicle  and  Boston  Patriot,  May  23,  1832. 

3  The  Man,  May  3,  1834. 


74  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

work,  but  was  not  strong  enough  to  extend  its  activities  to  anything 
further  then  discussion  and  agitation. 

More  important  than  the  National  Trades'  Union  were  the  craft 
unions  which  at  this  time  were  organized  on  a  national  basis, — the 
cordwainers,  the  printers,  the  comb  makers,  the  carpenters  and  the 
hand  loom  weavers.  Transportation  had  brought  different  cities  into 
competition,  and  it  was  becoming  necessary  to  act  together.  In  1836 
the  cordwainers  called  a  convention  "  to  endeavor  to  equalize  the  wages  as 
nearly  as  possible — to  create  that  concert  of  action  necessary  to  insure  a 
steady  and  sufficient  price  for  our  labor. "  *  This  union  desplayed  all 
the  earmarks  of  the  strictly  business  union.  It  declared  for  shorter 
hours  in  order  to  "make  work,"  limited  apprentices,  asked  for  the  or- 
ganization of  women  to  prevent  ruinous  competition,  asked  the  pro- 
hibition of  foreign  imports,  and  provided  for  a  strong  protective  fund. 
Its  statement  in  regard  to  the  ten-hour  day  is  particularly  interesting 
hi  the  light  it  throws  on  the  various  citizenship  arguments  commonly 
advanced  in  behalf  of  shorter  hours.  "  Whereas,  a  surplus  of  the  products 
of  labor  is  calculated  in  almost  all  cases  to  reduce  the  wages  of  labor; 
and  whereas  the  evils  of  excessive  competition  among  the  journeymen 
bears  particularly  heavy  on  those  of  our  own  trade;  and  whereas  a  re- 
duction in  the  hours  of  labor  has  been  productive  of  beneficial  results 
in  the  character  and  condition  of  other  mechanics;  with  a  view  to  enable 
the  Journeymen  Cordwainers  of  all  branches  to  enjoy  the  advantages 
pecuniarily,  intellectually,  and  physically  resulting  from  a  reduction  in 
the  number  of  the  hours  of  labor — be  it  resolved,  that  it  is  seriously 
recommended  to  the  journeymen  comprising  the  various  Societies  rep- 
resented on  this  Convention,  to  reduce  the  number  of  their  working 
hours  so  as  to  conform  as  near  as  practicable  to  the  rules  adopted  by 
outdoor  mechanics,  believing  that  by  so  doing  they  will  be  better  en- 
abled to  obtain  a  proper  compensation  for  their  labor. "  2  This  theory 
of  "  making  work  "  probably  represented  a  good  deal  of  the  unexpressed 
reasons  for  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  ten-hour  day  movement  was 
received. 

Perhaps  the  statement  of  the  aims  of  the  National  Typographical 
Society  best  sums  up  all  the  threads  that  entered  into  this  final  phase  of 
/  I  the  mechanics'  movement.  "  Our  Association,  as  societies,  is  not  to 
oppress  others  but  for  self-defense.  To  secure  a  living  compensation 
for  our  labor,  and  to  sustain  the  generous,  liberal  employer  who  is  willing 

1  National  Trades'  Union,  Feb.  6,  1836. 


The  Mechanics'  Movement  of  the  Twenties  and  Thirties  75 

to  allow  such  compensation.  To  defend  ourselves  from  undermining 
and  base-spirited  journeymen,  and  thereby  protect  our  friends  among 
employers  from  those  of  their  number  who  would  take  advantage  of 
their  liberality — who  would  underwork  masters'  prices,  by  dispensing 
a  beggarly  pittance  to  their  journeymen.  We  have  still  another  and 
higher  motive — it  is  benevolence. "  1 

In  1837  came  the  panic  and  the  end  of  prosperous  times.  In  the  face 
of  unemployment  the  trades  unions  crumbled  away;  a  few  of  the  stronger 
turned  to  cooperation,  but  for  the  most  part  unionism  disappeared.  It 
was  not  for  twenty  years  that  the  workers  were  again  able  to  organize 
a  really  strong  movement;  and  then  it  was  the  factory  workers  of  the 
industrial  era  and  not  the  mechanics  and  skilled  artisans  of  the  thirties 
who  led  the  way. 

1  National  Trades'  Union,  October  17,  1835. 


I1 


5.  THE  DOUBLE  STRAIN  IN  THE  AMERICAN  LABOR 
MOVEMENT 

SHARPLY  defined  as  it  was,  the  mechanics'  movement  offers  an  excel- 
lent opportunity  for  the  analysis  of  the  motives  and  tendencies  of  labor 
activities.  Although  it  appeared  and  ran  its  course  before  America  had 
advanced  far  on  the  road  to  industrialism,  it  nevertheless  contained 
within  itself  .all  of  the  basic  features  that  have  since  marked  the  American 
labor  movement.  The  problems  confronting  the  worker,  however 
much  social  environment  may  necessitate  varying  technique  in  the 
attempt  to  solve  them,  remain,  like  the  fundamental  problems  of  ex- 
istence in  which  they  play  so  basic  a  part,  throughout  the  years  essen- 
tially the  same;  and  the  manifold  complexity  with  which  the  state  of 
the  industrial  arts  and  the  organization  of  the  social  and  economic  and 
political  superstructure  compel  the  toiler  to  approach  his  problem 
serves  only  to  set  off  in  bold  relief  the  essential  simplicity  of  his  ultimate 
aim.  The  merchant  capitalist  has  given  way  to  the  huge  corporation, 
the  tool  of  the  skilled  artisan  to  the  machine  of  the  specialized  factory 
hand;  but  the  questions  that  arose  a  hundred  years  ago  differ  only  in 
degree  from  those  that  rise  today,  and  the  leader  of  the  thirties  could 
take  his  place  in  a  modern  union  debate  and  find  the  issues  changed 
ly  in  intensity. 

The  fundamental  aim  of  labor,  revealed  as  the  motive  back  of  the 
mechanics'  movement  and  equally  potent  today,  is  the  desire  for  a 
secure  and  equal  position  in  society — a  position  of  freedom  from  the 
fear  of  want  and  unemployment,  and  an  enjoyment  of  the  goods  of  life 

\gpt  markedly  disproportionate  to  that  of  one's  neighbor.  In  certain  con- 
ditions,— slavery  or  serfdom,  for  instance, — the  worker  is  willing  to 
give  up  one  of  these  amis  for  the  sake  of  attaining  the  other;  but  both 
are  in  the  long  run  essential,  and  both  have  played  their  part  in  the 
American  labor  movement.  Equality  of  status  is  perhaps  the  more 
fundamental;  it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  essential  component  of 
the  American  ideal  of  democracy,  and  it  hearkens  back  to  the  day  of  the 

^settler  and  the  frontiersman.  It  motivated  the  outcry  against  the 
monopolist  and  banker  of  a  century  ago,  and  it  lies  at  the  bottom  of 
the  present  indignation  against  the  profiteer  and  the  "capitalist."  It  is 
significant  that  in  the  early  days  the  unionists  were  called  by  their  enemies 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  77 

"ievelers";  though  since  what  they  wanted  was  so  obviously  a  leveling 
up  they  could  never  understand  the  accusations  of  wishing  to  level 
down.  By  the  common  man  this  equality  has  never  been  considered, 
unless  under  the  influence  of  some  Tom  Paine,  as  a  metaphysical  and 
mathematically  equal  state  of  affairs;  even  the  agrarians  who  wished  to 
divide  up  the  land  did  not  feel  the  force  of  the  argument  that  new  in- 
equality would  speedily  ensue.  For  the  common  man  has  always  recog- 
nized differences  in  ability,  and  concurred  in  their  reward ;  some  have  a 
knack  of  getting  along,  others  are  naturally  shiftless,  and  the  good 
workman  has  always  despised  his  lazy  brother.  Of  course  some  will  be 
better  off  than  others;  but  that  some  should  be  better  off  because  they 
are  privileged  to  use  their  power  in  spoiling  the  chances  of  konest  workers, 
that,  labor  has  never  admitted,  and  it  is  just  that  fact  which  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  American  democracy. 

But  if  equality  is  the  basic  aim,  security  always  accompanies  it 
often  becomes  of  far  greater  pressing  immediacy.  The  greatest  fear 
that  haunts  the  modern  worker  is  the  fear  of  losing  his  job.  There  is  a^/ 
custom  in  the  coal-fields  of  Pennsylvania  that  aptly  symbolizes  the  ad- 
vance modern  progress  has  made  over  medieval  superstition.  Every 
evening  at  sunset  as  the  workers  emerge  from  their  underground  burrows 
a  bell  is  rung;  and  just  as  of  old  the  peasant  was  wont  to  look  forward 
to  the  vesper  bell  of  his  parish  church,  to  cross  himself  as  he  heard  its 
tones  and  to  pray  for  the  safety  of  his  soul,  so  the  present-day  worker 
anxiously  awaits  this  modern  angelus.  When  its  first  stroke  rings  out  a 
breathless  hush  falls  on  all  the  grimy  mining  town,  and  men  and  women 
everywhere  pause  to  count  its  peals.  For  by  their  number  they  are  told 
whether  or  no  there  will  be  work  for  the  morrow,  whether  or  no  there 
will  be  another  day's  pay  in  the  weekly  envelope.  Thus  has  the  fear 
that  men  used  to  have  lest  they  lose  their  souls  been  by  modern  prog- 
ress transmuted  into  the  fear  lest  they  lose  their  work;  for  in  our 
modern  up-to-date  methods  of  mining  there  is  little  bothering  about 
men's  souls. 

It  is  this  haunting  fear  of  unemployment  and  destitution,  the  poign- 
ancy no  description  can  bring  home,  that  has  led  to  most  of  the  actions 
of  labor  condemned  off-hand  by  the  superficial  observer.  The  worker 
has  ever  been  prone  to  seize  upon  any  course  of  action  that  promised  to 
"make  work,"  however  loath  at  times  he  may  be  to  admit  it;  and  hence 
follows,  as  the  very  natural  result  of  the  desire  to  escape  starvation,  the  >* 
opposition  to  machinery,  the  shortening  of  hours,  the  curtailment  of 
production,  and  the  various  other  sins  that  cause  the  editor  of  the 


78  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

metropolitan  daily,  secure  in  the  possession  of  a  generous  and  assured 
salary,  to  hold  up  his  hands  in  editorial  horror.  Thus  in  what  is  probably 
the  most  advanced  of  all  unions  today,  the  Amalgamated  Clothing 
Workers,  the  proposal  to  secure  the  44-hour  week  was  carried  by  the 
plea  of  a  delegate  that  the  many  refugees  of  Europe  would  soon  be  with 
their  friends  seeking  work.  A  dreadful  act,  no  doubt;  yet  unfortunately 
men  do  not  come  into  the  world  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  supply 
and  demand,  and  some  of  them  obstinately  prefer  to  increase  the  cost 
of  clothing  rather  than  to  starve  to  death. 

An  equal  and  secure  position  hi  society — this  was  the  aim  of  the 
I  mechanics  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  To  obtain  it  they  employed  two  dis- 
tinct methods.  They  organized  trade  societies,  they  turned  out,  and 
they  demanded  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours  for  themselves.  But 
they  also  pursued  another  course;  haltingly,  perhaps,  and  with  no  such 
measure  of  success,  but  nevertheless  they  pursued  it.  They  endeavored, 
by  forming  a  general  class  organization,  and  by  using  their  newly  ac- 
quired political  power,  to  secure  their  aim,  not  primarily  as  an  individual 
(Bright,  but  rather  as  a  social  condition.  They  sought  to  restore  the 
America  of  their  Fathers.  What  mattered  it  that  that  America  had, 
strictly  speaking,  never  existed?  In  their  characteristic  Anglo-Saxon 
fashion  they  were  trying  to  reform  society  through  idealizing  the  past. 
They  demanded  education  for  fulfilling  the  duties  of  citizenship.  They 
demanded  leisure  to  pursue  that  education.  In  exercising  the  rights  of 
citizens  they  thought  as  citizens  about  the  society  in  which  they  found 
tj^ejnselves. 

/(Corresponding  to  these  two  methods  of  securing  the  aim  of  labor,  and 

I    determining  their  employment,  are  two  distinct  motives.    The  first  is 

\   self-interest,  individual  economic  advantage;   the   second,  in  that  it  is 

jj  relatively  objective  and  apart  from  immediate  gain,  can  best  be  described 

I    as  social  idealism,  as  a  desire  for  a  better  organization  of  society  in  all 

^/    its  parts.  *  Neither,  of  course,  existed  exclusively,  in  either  the  political 

^    or  the  economic  stages  of  the  movement;  there  was  probably  no  single 

/     individual  in  whom  the  two  motives  were  not  hopelessly  mixed.    Yet 

/      nevertheless  it  is  apparent  that  in  strictly  trade  society  activities  the 

motive   of   economic    interest   predominated,    while   hi    the   political 

campaign^  for  education   social  idealism  played   a  very  conspicuous 

XtrSeT3 

These  two  motives  will  be  found  to  run  jointly  throughout  the  labor 
movement.  Both  are  prominent  at  the  present  day,  and  both  will  un- 
doubtedly continue  as  the  springs  of  social  action.  They  stand  as  the 


• 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  79 

two  limits  between  which  the  labor  movement  vibrates.  The  character 
of  any  particular  organization  depends  primarily  upon  the  relative 
emphasis  placed  upon  each.  Both  are  always  present:  no  labor  move- 
ment is  ever  disinterested,  though  its  leaders  often  are,  and  even  the 
most  self -centered  has  always  a  justifying  philosophy  that  its  actions 
result  in  the  general  welfare  of  society.  There  is,  indeed,  far  from  being 
any  necessary  antagonism  between  the  two  motives,  the  closest  possible 
relation;  and  the  problem  of  social  organization  is  just  that  of  securing 
a  harmonious  blend  of  social  and  individual  interests.  And  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  the  fundamental  postulate  of  nineteenth  century 
economic  theory  and  the  society  erected  upon  it  has  been  that  social^1 -^ 
welfare  is  best  secured  through  every  individual's  seeking  his  own  in- 
terest. Men  have  but  lately  come  to  question  this  theory,  and  to  realize 
that  it  implies  as  actual  a  state  of  affairs  that  in  reality  is  but  a  hope  and 
a  goal  for  the  future;  that  it  is  far  too  optimistic  to  fit  the  present  state 
of  mankind.  This  theory  holds  still  well-nigh  absolute  sway  in  the 
world  of  industry:  it  is,  in  fact,  only  to  labor  activities  that  it  ever  oc- 
curs to  men  to  apply  any  other  standard  than  that  of  prosperity  and 
business  success. 

It  is,  then,  all  things  considered,  quite  remarkable  the  extent  to  which 
the  labor  movement  has  at  times  pursued  a  course  which  when  the  two 
were  at  variance  followed  social  rather  than  individual  interests,  and 
has  persisted  in  seeking  the  larger  aim  when  the  lesser  would  clearly 
have  redounded  more  to  its  advantage.    It  indicates  that  the  analysis 
that  economic  liberalism  made  of  the  springs  of  human  action  was  far 
from  exhaustive,  and  suggests  the  point  of  view  toward  which  social-, 
psychology  is  painfully  struggling.    For  nothing  is  more  clear  to  the/ 
observer  of  the  development  of  the  American   labor  movement  than 
the  struggle,  the  persistence,  the  successive  emergence  of  now,  one,  now     \ 
the  other,  as  the  dominating  motive  of  the  workers'  efforts.    The  ri- 
valry appears  in  the  mechanics'  movement;  it  will  be  apparent  through- 
out its  successors. 

These  two  motives,  individual  interest  and  social  interest,  produced 
two  distinct  types  of  general  aim.    The  former  is  conservative:  it  ac- 
cepts things  as  they  are,  it  is  "realistic,"  it  is  "practical,"  it  despises 
"theories".     It  takes  the  social  situation  in  which  it  finds  itself  for  ) 
granted,  and  bends  its  efforts  toward  making  the  most  of  what  it  has 
to  start  with.    In  the  measure  in  which  it  succeeds  it  rejects  change; 
for  it  too  has  become  a  vested  interest.    It  acquires  the  attitudes  and  i 
the  reactions  of  the  common  business  man.    It  is  playing  the  game  as  it 


8o  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

finds  it,  and  playing  it  well;  far  too  well,  indeed,  for  many  of  the  other 

\  participants.  And,  just  like  the  business  man,  in  its  indifference  to  any 
larger  considerations  than  its  own  individual  advantage  it  often  hap- 

^pens  that  its  activities  become  definitely  anti-social.  When  circumstan- 
ces give  it  the  power  to  hold  up  the  community  to  fill  its  own  pocket, 
it  is  apt  to  use  that  power;  just  as  the  broker  on  the  corn-exchange  or 
the  monopolizer  of  some  necessity  like  sugar  might  raise  his  price  and 
cause  a  nation  to  starve.  The  motive  of  individual  interest  is  indeed 
found  at  its  purest  in  the  criminal,  who  is  at  once  the  most  conserva- 
and  the  most  anti-social  force  in  society. 

/.-  "The  other  motive  tends  to  produce  a  quite  different  type  of  ami. 

:  It  is  necessarily  more  revolutionary;  it  does  not  accept  conditions  as 
they  are.  It  questions  the  social  situation  in  which  it  finds  itself;  it  im- 
agines others  in  which  those  things  it  dislikes  have  no  place.  It  seeks 

(to  change  conditions  rather  than  to  make  the  best  of  them.  It  does 
not  adapt  itself  to  its  environment,  it  tries  to  make  that  environment 
conform  to  what  it  considers  right.  At  times  it  elaborates  imposing 
edifices  of  theory  and  hypothesis  to  guide  it  and  to  justify  its  cravings 
for  change.  It  does  not  play  the  game.  It  refuses,  so  it  seems,  even  to 
"play  fair,"  because  it  questions  the  justice  of  the  rules.  And  it  often 
happens  that  to  those  who  have  become  skillful  players  under  the  old 
rules  the  new  seem  abhorrent;  for  at  the  first  they  certainly  are  con- 
fusing. It  is  thus  definitely  subversive  of  the  old  order,  but  it  is  never 
what  the  other  type  of  aim  readily  becomes,  anti-social.  Ignorant, 
"impractical,"  yes,  dangerous,  oftentimes,  yet  inspired  with  a  noble 
aim  and  of  priceless  worth  withal,  it  seeks  to  bring  about  conditions 
that  shall  make  anti-social  action  impossible. 

oth  of  these  motives  may  naturally  employ  either  political  or  ec- 
onomic means  to  achieve  their  respective  ends.  In  politics  individual 
terest  seeks  no  fundamental  changes,  but  rather  works  for  "reforms; 
desiring  only  to  achieve  certain  definite  legislative  measuresr  it  does  _ 
not  bother  to  form  and  manipulate  a  political  party.  That  would  nec- 
essarily involve  it  in  considerations  of  social  policy  for  which  it  has  no 
stomach.  Instead  it  endeavors  to  utilize  for  its  purposes  existing  par- 
ties. It  tries  to  hold  the  balance  of  power  between  the  two,  and  by 
threats  of  "rewarding  its  friends"  and  "punishing  its  enemies"  to  se- 
cure the  recognition  that  politicians  accord  to  well-organized  blocks  of 
voters.  It  employs  large  and  powerful  lobbies  at  the  seats  of  legisla- 
tive dispensation.  It  favors  log-rolling  and  all  of  those  highly  intricate 
and  ingenious  methods  whereby  modern  law-makers  transform  bills 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  81 

into  laws.    Its  political  method  is  opportunistic,  to  adopt  the  most  effi-J 
cient  means  of  getting  its  measures  through. 

In  the  economic  field  it  strikes  for  higher  wages,  for  shorter  hours! 
(primarily  to  make  work)  and  for  better  conditions.  It  prefers,  how- 
ever, the  peaceful  path  of  collective  bargaining,  of  wage-scales  and 
agreements  with  employers;  its  strikes  are  strategic  incidents  in  its  cam- 
paign for  more  and  more  bargaining  power.  In  accordance  with  its  de-y 
sire  to  observe  the  rules  of  the  business  game  it  makes  contracts  and  re- 
ligiously abides  by  them.  It  deprecates  sympathetic  strikes;  as  in  the 
case  of  the  United  Garment  Workers  and  the  Amalgamated  Clothing 
Workers,  if  it  is  to  its  own  advantage  it  is  willing  to  scab  on  another 
union.  It  jealously  preserves  its  craft  lines,  and  engages  in  jurisdic- 
tional  disputes  with  other  crafts  for  members.  Its  representatives  are 
fittingly  called  business  agents— they  tend  to  be  of  the  politician  type, 
they  are  kept  in  power  so  long  as  they  are  successful,  and  they  occupy 
the  place  of  go-betweens  between  their  constitutents  and  their  employ- 
ers. They  could  hardly  be  called  leaders,  for  they  are  rather  professional 
men  retained  to  look  after  the  union's  interests.  Yet  they  are  often 
inspired  by  an  intense  devotion  to  their  clients,  and  their  vision  is  on 
the  whole  more  broadly  social  than  that  of  the  average  unionist. 

Social  idealism  as  a  motive  tends  to  emphasize  the  political  method. 
Thinking  in  terms  of  social  reconstruction,  it  naturally  turns  to  the  po- 
litical means  whereby  alone  such  reforms  can  be  peaceably  effected. 
It  favors  a  labor  party  and  independent  action;  it  disdains  opportunis- 
tic tactics  and  piece-meal  reforms,  and  seeks  rather  the  power  to  re- 
constitute society.  Incidentally  it  creates  as  many  parties  and  as  many 
planks  as  there  are  differing  visions  of  a  better  community.  Often  in- 
transigeant,  it  is  apt  to  succumb  to  trained  and  unscrupulous  politi- 
cians. 

In  the  economic  field  its  strikes  always  have  a  further  import  than 
their  immediate  objects.  They  are  often  used  as  political  weapons; 
even  when  their  chance  of  success  is  slight  they  are  favored  as  creating 
solidarity  among  the  workers.  They  are  employed  not  so  much  to  in- 
crease effective  bargaining  power  as  to  serve  as  incidents  in  a  larger 
campaign  for  social  ends.  Social  interest  is  apt  to  lead  to  strikes  in 
sympathy  with  other  trades;  it  rather  overlooks  the  nice  points  of  the 
customs  of  contracts.  It  seeks  inclusiveness  rather  than  exclusiveness. 
Its  leaders  are  apt  to  be  real  leaders,  followed  perhaps  with  a  blind  de- 
votion when  they  are  wrong  as  when  they  are  right. 

Robert  F.  Hoxie  has  made  a  most  suggestive  attempt  to  classify  the 


82  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

labor  organizations  that  appear  in  American  history  on  the  basis  of  their 
aims  and  methods;  he  has  discovered  four  general  functional  types,  two  of 
which  have  subdivisions.  He  recognizes  first,  business  unionism,  the 
type  we  have  seen  approached  in  the  later  development  of  the  mechanics' 
movement;  second,  friendly  or  uplift  unionism,  emphasizing  mutual 
benefits;  third,  revolutionary  unionism,  which  may  be  either  socialistic  or 
syndicalistic  according  as  it  emphasizes  the  political  or  the  economic 
method;  and  fourth,  predatory  unionism,  which  may  be  either  guerilla  or 
hold-up,  sincere  or  corrupt,  in  its  activity.  Hoxie  inclines  to  consider 
.*)  these  types  as  ultimate,  the  product  of  certain  distinctive  situations; 

\-^    V  and  undoubtedly  their  historical  genesis  is  so  to  be  explained^  But  it  is 

-^  apparent  that  these  four  types  can  be  regarded  as  resultantsjolthe  vary- 

,-  ,  -\wjng  combinations  of  the  two  fundamental  motives  or  strains,  individual 

£,*>'*'  \~aTujjuyia.l  interests.    According  as  "tHemte  or  the  other  becomes  dominant 

' ^  g.  or  as  the  relative  emphasis  which  certain  conditions  cause  to  be  placed 
on  now  one  and  now  the  other  shifts,  the  organization  will  tend  to  con- 
form more  or  less  closely  to  one  of  Hoxie's  four  types.  By  going  back  of 
the  four  functional  forms  to  the  more  ultimate  motives  inspiring  them  it 
is  possible  not  only  to  arrive  at  a  bond  of  union,  but  also  to  explain  how 
a  single  organization,  in  the  course  of  its  history  and  as  the  result  of 
varying  conditions  and  leaders,  may  pass  rapidly  from  one  type  to 
another,  and  even  run  the  entire  gamut  from  extremely  conservative 
business  unionism  to  extreme  revolutionary  unionism.  It  shows  how  it  is 
possible  at  a  single  bound  for  the  Railroad  Brotherhoods,  for  instance,  to 
throw  the  Plumb  Plan  enthusiastically  into  the  midst  of  an  amazed 
wprld/For  it  is  the  very  essence  of  the  double  strain  that  both  strains  are 
always  present,  that  it  is  fundamentally  double— that  the  passage  from 
one  to  the  other  involves  only  a  very  slight  alteration  of  emphasis — the 
shifting  of  a  few  votes  in  convention,  the  election  of  a  new  leader,  the 
necessity  of  meeting  a  specific  situation. 
Thus  Hoxie's  four  types  might  well  be  arranged  in  a  square  as  follows: 

f 

Business  Unionism Uplift  Unionism 


) 
I 
\ 


x 


Indi- 
vid- 


So- 

cial 


ual  In-    Predatory  Unionism  Revolutionary  Unionism         In- 

Hold-up  --  Guerilla  _  Syndicalistic  -  Socialistic    terest 


The  scale  from  left  to  right  would  indicate  the  amount  of  emphasis 
given  the  social  motive,  that  from  top  to  bottom  the  relative  conserva- 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  83 

tism.    The  diagram  is  not,  of  course,  accurate,  but  it  reveals  some  inter- 
esting relationships.    It  will  be  seen  that  the  business  and  the  predatory 
union  possess  in  common  the  emphasis  on  the  individual  interest  and  the 
disregard  of  social  consequences;  and  this  makes  the  passage  from  one  to 
the  other  easy.    Likewise  the  predatory  and  the  revolutionary  union  are 
bound  together  by  their  similarity  of  methods,  which  makes  it  clear  how 
an  organization  like  the  I.  W.  W.  really  can  exemplify  in  its  personnel  and    . 
tactics  both  types.    It  is  well,  however,  to  insist  with  Hoxie  that  these  A 
are  but  ideal  types,  never  found  in  their  purity  in  any  union  and  but_J 
-rarely  in  any  individual. 

But  not  only  does  a  study  of  the  American  labor  movement  reveal 
presence  of  this  double  strain — it  also  seems  to  show  a  somewhat  recur- 
rent cycle  of  emphasis,  a  career  of  progress  from  a  period  when  one  is  in 
the  ascendant  to  the  other  and  then  back  again.  Like  all  attemptsfoj 
trace  any  regularity  in  the  immensely  pluralistic  fabric  of  human  affairs  as 
they  are  spread  out  through  time,  this  cycle  at  once  fails  when  too  closely 
pressed;  if  there  be  indeed  any  laws  which  obtain  in  history,  they  are 
far  too  complex  for  statement  in  any  simple  formula.  Yet  the  attempt  to 
draw  the  parallel  between  different  periods  of  labor  history  is  as  illumi- 
nating in  the  differences  it  reveals  as  in  the  similarities.  It  is  clarifying 
to  observe  the  way  in  which  history,  superficially  at  least,  appears  at 
times  to  repeat  itself. 

It  has  already  been  noted  that  the  mechanics'  movement  was  an  iso- 
lated event  that  had  a  definite  career  of  three  stages.  It  is  possible  to 
observe  these  three  stages  in  the  far  more  important  movement  that 
began  with  the  Civil  War  and  reached  its  maturity  in  the  nineties;  and  it 
is  even  possible  to  observe  the  beginnings  of  a  third  cycle  with  the  un- 
skilled. This  cyclical  movement  starts  as  a  crude  protest  against  intoler^  V**^ 
able  conditions;  at  its  outset  it  has  little  ultimate  aim  beyond  the  imme- 
diate one  of  making  life  a  little  more  bearable,  and  even  less  of  theory  and 
philosophy.  But  it  rapidly  becomes  critical  of  its  aims  and  methods;  the 
original  motive  of  self-interest  persists  and  grows  stronger,  but  there 
springs  up  in  addition  the  desire  to  reach  more  fundamental  causes,  to  t 
alter  underlying  conditions.  The  scope  broadens  rapidly  a-nH  hpcnmpj^. 
more  and  more  social:  the  unionists  develop  a  theory  of  society  that. 
appeal  to  their  fellow-citizens  to  join  them  fa  a  movement  of  mutual 
advantage.  Thinking  in  terms  of  society  as  a  whole,  they,  are  apt  to 
adopt  political  means  to  alter  the  structure  of  the  state.  They  call  on  the 
majority  to  unite  with  them  to  vindicate  American  democracy.  But  the 
majority  repels  their  advances;  it  is  not  willing  to  risk  its  own  varied 


84  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

interests  in  attempting  any  social  reconstruction.  Rebuffed  and  de- 
feated the  workers  accept  the  philosophy  of  the  majority  and  seek  once 
more  the  most  effective  means  of  maintaining  their  own  status.  They 
take  their  place  in  the  business  life  of  the  nation  to  engage  in  the  competi- 
tive struggle  that  has  thus  far  marked  the  industrial  age. 
N  Thus  the  mechanics'  movement  started  as  a  protest  and  a  revolt  against 
the  violation  of  the  status  of  the  artisan  in  the  early  American  democracy. 
At  the  outset  it  emphasized  individual  rights,  seeking  to  arouse  the  work- 
ers to  an  assertion  of  their  power  against  individual  men  whom  it  imag- 
ined had  willfully  taken  from  them  what  was  their  rightful  due.  Sponta- 
neous turn-outs  directed  against  specific  reductions  in  wages  or  excessive 
hours  marked  this  stage. 

Then  the  movement  became  more  reflective  and  critical.  It  passed 
over  into  a  protest,  not  against  the  individual  primarily,  but  against  those 
features  of  the  social  system  which  permitted  his  acts.  Where  before  it 
had  emphasized  rights  it  now  turned  to  justice — justice  being,  in  one 
aspect,  " rights"  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  community  as  a 
whole.  It  became  political  in  its  methods  and  broadly  social  in  its  aims, 
attacking  monopolies,  debt-laws,  currency  systems,  and  privilege  in 
general.  Education  and  its  prerequisite  leisure,  for  the  sake  of  citizenship 
and  the  general  welfare,  tended  to  supplant  higher  wages  as  the  primary 
demand;  and  even  the  economic  desire  for  an  improved  social  status  was 
advocated  for  its  effect  upon  the  nation  at  large.  The  workers  at  least 
thought  in  terms  of  social  values — political  duties,  citizens'  responsi- 
bilities, intellectual  development. 

Its  immediate  aims  largely  achieved,  it  was  left  without  a  distinctive 
program,  and  it  as  yet  represented  too  small  a  portion  of  the  community 
to  appeal  successfully  for  a  more  thoroughgoing  revision  of  the  social 
structure.  The  special  interests  it  was  combatting  were  strong  and 
unscrupulous.  The  agricultural  population,  still  wedded  to  the  frontiers- 
man's love  of  independence  and  hatred  of  social  interference,  were 
definitely  unsympathetic.  Nowhere  meeting  any  response  to  its  appeal 
for  the  purging  of  democracy  of  the  corruption  that  had  crept  into  it,  it  is 
little  wonder  that  it  turned  to  less  exalted  but  more  practical  policies. 
America  of  the  thirties  and  forties  was  indeed  full  of  "reformers";  it  was 
the  golden  age  of  Utopian  schemes  for  the  complete  regeneration  of 
society.  But  the  estimable  gentlemen  who  flocked  to  the  numerous 
communities  and  phalanges  that  dotted  the  western  prairies,  who  re- 
sponded to  the  visions  of  Fourier  eloquently  put  forward  by  Albert 
Brisbane,  had  no  desire  to  engage  upon  the  laborious  modification  of 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  85 

existing  institutions.  They  wished  to  journey  into  the  primeval  forest 
and  build  from  the  very  bottom  up  an  entirely  new  society;  for  them 
civilization  was  already  hopelessly  corrupt.  And  it  is  entirely  possible 
that  the  pilgrims  of  Brook  Farm  preferred  not  to  jeopardize  their  secure 
incomes  while  they  were  experimenting  with  new  forms  of  social  existence. 
So  long  as  there  was  an  untold  wealth  of  land  lying  idle  to  the  west  tfi2 
best  minds  were  loath  to  put  forward  the  sustained  intelligence  necessary 
for  a  real  grappling  with  social  problems.  Not  until  the  western  lands 
were  all  gone  was  the  situation  acute  enough  to  call  for  really  drastic  / 
measures. 

But  be  the  cause  what  it  may,  there  came  in  the  thirties  a  rapid  re- 
action to  strict  business  unionism.  The  social  idealism  that  had  secured 
universal  education  did  not  at  once  evaporate;  the  workers  sought  a  social 
justification  for  their  efforts  at  collective  bargaining,  and  secured  a 
recognized  place  in  society.  But  they  soon  adopted  the  prevailing  ide- 
ology of  competition,  and  were  absorbed  into  the  general  business  life  of 
the  nation  as  units.  The  fundamental  aim  of  the  movement — the 
achievement  of  a  definite  and  secure  status  in  society — was,  they  thought, 
in  some  measure  obtained.  Their  position  was  indeed  far  from  equal,  and 
security  was  rather  precarious,  as  1837  proved,  but  in  the  steady  growth 
of  their  bargaining  power  there  opened  before  them  a  vista  of  further 
advance.  The  labor  movement  had  reached  a  condition  of  relative 
stability  which  only  some  radical  change  in  social  conditions  could  upset. 
That  change  did  not  come  until  the  twentieth  century,  and  then  only  with 
the  slow  growth  of  industrialism. 

When  the  labor  movement  sprang  into*  being  once  more  in  the  late 
fifties  the  same  cycle  was  repeated  with  slight  variations.  {At  first  there 
grew  up  organizations  of  individual  protest  and  revolt  whose  aim  was 
self -protection,  organizations  which  improved  transportation  made 
national  and  which  previous  experience  rendered  in  a  measure  less  spon- 
taneous and  unguided.  Then  the  purely  individual  motive  was  once' 
more  supplemented  by  social  idealism,  the  workers  made  another  appeal*1"! 
to  the  community  to  engage  in  serious  social  control.  Once  more  at- 
tempts were  made  at  a  humanitarian  and  class-conscious  organization 
opposed  to  the  "interests"  and  in  behalf  of  the  " common  people." 
^Economic  advantage  was  supplemented  by  social  aims.  First  the  Na- 
tional Labor  Union,  then  the  Knights  of  Labor,  arose  and  drifted  into 
political  activity;  and  at  the  outset  they  too  were  relatively  successful. 
But  the  same  influences  that  had  swamped  the  working  men's  parties 
fifty  years  previously  destroyed  them:  the  hostility  of  the  employers  and 


86  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  apathy  of  the  public.  Once  again  immediate  interest  conquered; 
strict  business  unionism  again  proved  its  advantages  from  the  economic 
standpoint,  and  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  waxed  while  the 
Knights  of  Labor  waned.  They  had  their  philosophy  of  social  justifica- 
tion at  first,  the  theory  of  Ira  Steward,  which  by  dint  of  much  educational 
work  in  the  early  nineties  had  become  ingrained  in  the  older  unions;  but 
that  philosophy  has  been  forgotten  now,  and  survives  only  among  the 
older  members  and  in  the  underlying  presuppositions  upon  which  the 
leaders  act.  Once  again  the  labor  movement  had  reached  a  state  of 
relative  stability. 

But  by  this  time  industrialism  had  progressed  sufficiently  to  change 
the  situation.  As  will  be  seen  later,  under  modern  conditions  there  has 
grown  up  a  great  number  of  unskilled  workers  who  have  little  with  which 
to  bargain  except  their  manual  labor.  Their  monopoly  of  skilled  crafts- 
manship has  been  stolen  by  the  machine.  Among  them  there  arose  the 
familiar  revolts  and  protests,  revolts  which  have  been  in  some  instances 
incorporated  by  organizations  such  as  the  I.  W.  W.  Amongst  western 
lumbermen  and  miners,  and  the  textile  workers  of  the  east,  these  revolts 
have  partaken  of  the  same  lack  of  aim,  the  same  spontaneous  character  as 
those  occurring  at  the  beginning  of  each  of  the  two  former  cycles.  And 
these  unskilled  have  likewise  developed  social  aims  and  theories  that 
have  found  fruit  in  a  new  kind  of  unionism,  perhaps  best  represented  by 
the  industrialism  of  the  clothing  workers.  Because  of  the  persistence  of 
the  craftsman's  business  union,  the  development  is  not  clear;  for  it  has 
taken  place  as  much  within  the  older  organizations  as  without  them. 
What  will  be  the  further  course,  it  is  impossible  to  say;  it  is  with  a  con- 
sideration of  probable  and  possible  developments  that  this  book  attempts 
to  deal.  It  is  entirely  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  the  hostility  of 
public  and  employer  will  cause  the  cycle  to  pursue  its  wonted  course,  and 
that  the  so-called  "new  unionism"  of  the  unskilled  will  merge  into  a  new 
form  of  business  unionism  in  which  the  motive  of  individual  advantage 
has  overcome  that  of  social  idealism — into  something  between  the  busi- 
ness and  the  predatory  union.  But  many  considerations  which  will  be 
developed  later  make  it  at  least  doubtful  whether  the  conditions  that 
favored  this  type  before  have  not  radically  changed,  and  whether  it  will 
not  be  likely  that  this  time  the  appeal  to  men  to  alter  their  social  structure 
will  meet  with  a  more  favorable  response.  It  is  at  least  significant  that 
this  newer,  more  sodally-minded  movement  is  at  present  appearing 
rapidly  in  the  very  heart  of  the  older  business  unionism.  This  important 
question,  however,  must  be  postponed  for  later  consideration. 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  87 


There  is  thus  evident  this  alternation  between  emphasis  upon  the 
individual  and  upon  the  larger  social  interest  permeating  the  history  of 
American  labor.  But  lest  it  appear  that  the  two  strains  are  opposed,  that 
one  must  overcome  or  supersede  the  other;  lest  it  seem  necessary  to 
choose  between  the  two,  let  us  approach  the  matter  from  another  angle. 
Hitherto  we  have  contrasted  the  two,  and  remarked  upon  their  successive 
rise  and  fall.  ^Tow  let  us  examine  the  history  of  labor  with  a  view  to  the 
remarkable  simultaneous  persistence  and  permanence  of  both.  For  every 
action  of  labor,  every  decisive  step  it  has  advocated,  has  been  supported 
by  both  these  motives  together.  There  has  been  to  an  extraordinary 
degree  a  blending  and  interaction  between  these  two  strains.  Measures 
advocated  by  far-seeing  leaders  because  of  their  beneficial  social  conse- 
quences have  secured  support  from  the  rank  and  file  because  of  the 
immediate  interests  to  which  they  also  appealed.  And  as  those  measures 
were  put  into  force,  those  same  workers  have  come  to  see  the  social  side  of 
their  activities  and  to  advocate  further  measures  in  which  the  immediate 
individual  gain  is  not  so  apparent.  The  labor  movement  has  thus  proved 
of  immense  educative  value  to  the  workers  in  developing  social-minded- 
ness,  as  will  be  seen  later. 

Let  us  examine  some  of  the  leading  features  of  unionism.     Consider 
first  the  outstanding  fact  of  the  cooperation  of  the  workers  to  secure  a 
common  end,  the  actual  bond  of  union  between  them.    The  great  right] 
of  free  contract  is  undoubtedly  in  certain  situations  a  privilege  to  be 
battled  for  and  loyally  guarded;  it  is  indeed,  as  we  have  so  often  been 
told,  a  great  moral  principle.    Nevertheless  trade  unionists  are  cold 
it;  they  build  their  societies  on  the  basic  principle  of  each  one  giving  up  ' 
his  individual  freedom  of  contract  and  submitting  rather  to  collective    i 
agreement.    What  leads  men  thus  to  give  up  their  liberty  of  action? 

At  first  and  at  bottom,  of  course,  it  is  because  in  so  doing  they  gam  a 
larger  freedom.    Economic  conditions  have  placed  the  individual  worker 
at  the  mercy  of  the  employer  in  bargaining  power;  since  a  free  contract 
necessarily  implies  an  agreement  between  equals,  it  is  essential  for  the 
worker  to  combine  with  his  fellows  to  place  his  collective  bargaining 
power  upon  a  basis  of  approximate  equality  with  that  of  the  employer.^ 
This  is  the  very  essence  of  labor  unionism;  it  is  the  cornerstone  upon^ 
which  the  whole  structure  of  trade  union  activities  is  builded.     The| 
worker  eventually  gains   more    through    surrendering   an   individual 
privilege;  hence  for  reasons  of  his  private  advantage  he  unites  with  his     < 
fellows. 

But  that  association  into  which  he  enters  itself  imposes  upon  him 


88  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

a  very  definite  social  viewpoint  and  attitude.  Suppose  he  has  joined 
solely  in  order  to  gain  the  benefit  of  the  higher  wages  in  a  certain  union 
shop.  In  working  with  his  fellow-unionists,  in  meeting  and  in  shop,  he 
perhaps  unconsciously  comes  to  absorb  their  point  of  view.  He  grows 
loyal  to  his  fellows,  and  to  the  association  which  means  so  much  to 
them.  He  comes  to  feel  their  abhorrence  for  the  scab,  the  man  who 
puts  his  individual  advantage  first,  the  upholder  of  the  great  principle 
of  the  freedom  of  contract.  Perhaps  he  is  tested  in  the  fire  of  a  strike; 
he  feels  the  spirit  of  determination  to  win  for  his  union.  He  uses  his 
savings  to  aid  the  families  of  his  less  fortunate  fellows.  And  when  the 
test  comes,  he  will  refuse  to  accept  a  job  at  high  wages  if  to  do  so  he  must 
forsake  his  union;  he  will  engage  in  a  sympathetic  strike  which  to  him 
can  mean  only  loss  of  money,  he  will  even  make  large  contributions  to 
fellow-strikers  elsewhere  upon  which  he  knows  he  can  get  no  possible 
return.  Anyone  who  knows  aught  of  trade  unions  knows  of  the  re- 
markable spirit  of  loyalty  to  the  group  and  of  personal  responsibility 
for  its  success  or  failure  that  permeates  every  member  and  makes  im- 
mediate personal  advantage  a  secondary  consideration.  It  is  the  spirit 
of  the  crusader;  in  our  modern  civilization  it  replaces  that  disinterested 
devotion  that  has  characterized  religious  bodies  hi  the  past.  It  is  in 
many  respects  even  more  remarkable;  for  the  martyr  went  to  his  death 
in  the  full  confidence  that  he  was  about  to  be  received  into  the  com- 
munion of  the  saints. 

In  this  cardinal  instance 'it  is  clear  that  both  strains,  both  the  motive 
of  individual  advantage  and  that  of  social  idealism,  are  inextricably 

'  united  in  the  labor  movement,  that  policies  begun  instinctively  in  self- 
preservation  have  broadened  into  means  for  the  attainment  of  a  social 
purpose.  It  is  no  less  apparent  in  other  phases  of  labor  activity.  Closely 
allied  to  the  cooperation  that  unionism  develops  is  the  equalization  of 
the  general  standard  of  living  toward  which  it  tends.  In  the  business 
life  of  the  community  the  theory  upon  which  men  operate  is  that  of 

/  "plenty  of  room  at  the  top."  Every  man  seeks  to  raise  himself  above 
his  fellows  in  the  economic  scale  in  the  simple  confidence  that  there  is  a 
position  of  eminence  awaiting  him.  So  there  is — just  as  the  presidency 
awaits  every  boy.  Unfortunately  there  can  be  only  a  small  number 
of  presidents  in  each  generation.  This  truth  has  impressed  itself  upon 
the  workers,  and  their  aim  is  thus  to  raise  all,  the  great  mass  of  the 
community,  to  a  higher  status,  rather  than  take  their  chances  on  in- 
dividual preeminence.  Hence  the  creation  of  maximum  standards,  the 
dislike  of  the  piece-system  and  its  consequent  pace-setter,  the  discourage- 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  89 

ment  of  too  great  "individual  initiative"  when  it  results  in  forcing  down 
the  standards  of  the  less  skilled.  In  countless  ways  labor  has  gradually 
learned  that  in  the  long  run  it  is  to  the  advantage  of  all  its  members/ 
taken  as  a  whole  to  reduce  the  difference  between  the  best  paid  and 
the  worst  paid  worker.  The  "aristocrats  of  labor,"  the  skilled  crafts- 
men, have  as  machinery  replaced  handiwork  seen  their  skill  grow  less 
and  less  valuable;  they  have  beheld  the  constant  approach  of  the  lower 
grades  of  labor  to  their  own  standard  as  organization  of  the  less  skilled 
has  proceeded.  In  a  time  of  rising  prices  it  is  the  lowest  paid  who,  if 
strongly  organized,  gam  the  greatest  increase  in  wages.  Each  broaden- 
ing of  the  craft  basis  has  brought  a  greater  proportional  advantage  to 
the  lower  grades. 

This  tendency  toward  equalization  has  been  directly  inspired  by  the  ( 
individual  advantage  it  brings  to  the  unionists,  once  they  have  given  up 
the  notion  of  "plenty  of  room  at  the  top."  Its  wisdom  is  apparent  in 
the  greatly  increased  bargaining  power  of  the  union.  Yet  here  too  what 
began  for  personal  advantage  has  been  expanded  into  a  very  real  ideal 
for  the  working  class.  The  same  group  loyalty  that  grows  up  withig^ 
the  craft  union  has  overleaped  its  bounds  and  tends  to  include  ever 
larger  units.  The  workers  are  the  best  friends  of  the  lowest  paid  laborers; 
they  are  the  bitterest  opponents  of  sweating,  they  lead  the  way  in  or- 
ganizing other  trades.  Where  others  are  content  to  commiserate,  they 
are  prepared  to  go  on  a  sympathetic  strike,  to  contribute  money,  to 
help  in  that  best  of  ways,  through  organizing  activity.  When  the 
Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers  contributed  to  the  fund  of  the  steel 
strike  in  the  fall  of  1919  one  hundred  thousand  dollars,  they  merely 
symbolized  in  a  spectacular  fashion  the  solidarity  which  is  binding  all 
classes  of  labor  together  in  a  social  ideal  of  approximate  equality — that 
ideal  which  the  mechanics  of  the  thirties  saw  as  the  older  Jeffersonian 
democracy. 

Or  take  the  allied  question  of  the  inclusion  of  various  groups  within 
a  given  labor  organization,  women,  foreigners,  negroes,  et  cetera.  The 
impulse  has  been  at  first  to  exclude  them;  keep  them  if  possible  from 
engaging  in  the  trade,  that  the  group  already  organized  may  not  meet 
their  competition.  Women  have  been  told  to  retire  to  their  proper 
sphere  of  activity,  the  home;  negroes  have  been  kept  in  the  commonest 
class  of  labor.  But  it  soon  becomes  apparent  that  it  is  to  the  true  in- 
terests of  the  union,  not  to  exclude,  but  to  include  them,  not  to  attempt 
to  drive  them  from  the  industry,  but  to  eliminate  their  competition 
through  securing  for  them  the  same  wages,  and  admitting  them  on  a 


90  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

basis  of  equality.     From  the  enemies  of  these  oppressed  groups  the 
unions  have  become  their   strongest    supporters — at  first    largely  to 

/secure  their  own  gain.  But  here  once  more  the  motive  of  individual 
advantage  is  speedily  supplemented  by  that  of  social  interest,  and  the 
same  men  who  first  voted  to  admit  women  to  their  union  to  secure 
their  own  wages  are  the  very  ones  who  later  insist  on  organizing  and 
helping  them  for  their  own  sakes.  Such  a  policy,  originating  in  a  de- 
sire to  increase  bargaining  power,  soon  grows  into  a  social  ideal  advocated 

•.and  fought  for  on  its  own  account. 

•p  Voluntary  arbitration  is  another  policy  that  has  secured  the  support 

\ol  both  motives  of  the  double  strain.  It  is  usually  the  weaker  side  to 
an  industrial  dispute  that  proposes  arbitration  by  an  impartial  third 
party;  that  side  which  trusts  to  its  own  strength  complains  of  un- 
warranted interference  in  its  affairs.  Labor  seizes  upon  arbitration 
when  it  is  weak;  yet  it  also  has  come  to  embody  an  impartial  settlement 
of  disputes  in  its  ideal  as  a  social  measure.  It  is  the  same  with  that 
other  instrument  of  orderly  progress,  the  collective  agreement.  Self- 
interest  advises  the  keeping  of  contracts;  without  a  guarantee  of  ful- 
fillment collective  bargaining  becomes  obviously  impossible.  Yet  all 
but  the  most  revolutionary  unions  jealousy  regard  their  reputation  for 
honesty  in  abiding  by  their  contracts.  If  they  feel  that  the  employer 
is  attempting  to  worm  out  of  his  agreement,  they  have  no  compunction 
in  breaking  theirs;  it  is  the  spirit  and  not  the  letter  that  claims  their 
allegiance.  But  if  they  feel  that  they  are  being  treated  fairly  they  will 
play  square  even  to  their  own  loss.  Contrary  to  the  popular  and  care- 
fully educated  public  opinion,  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  it  is  the 
employer  and  not  the  union  at  all  which  first  violates  a  collective  con- 
tract. 

Or  consider  the  question  of  industrial  rather  than  craft  unionism — 
of  organizing  all  the  workers  in  an  entire  industry  into  one  large  union 
rather  than  breaking  them  up  into  numerous  small  craft  groups  on  the 

*  basis  of  the  particular  tool  they  use.  With  the  growth  of  the  subdivision 
of  labor  in  the  machine  process  and  the  consequent  reduction  of  the 
task  of  every  hand  to  a  relatively  simple  performance,  so  that  strike- 
breaking is  very  easy,  and  with  the  growth  of  large  combinations  of 
capital  controlling  entire  industries,  there  is  a  great  bargaining  ad- 

[jyantage  in  being  able  to  mobilize  every  plant  as  a  unit.  From  the 
standpoint  of  bargaining-power  industrial  unionism  is  the  most  effective 

\  type  of  organization.  It  has  developed  as  a  fighting  weapon,  as  it  alone 
can  control  a  great  mass  of  relatively  unskilled  workers.  tBut  even  more 


The  Double  Strain  in  the  American  Labor  Movement  91 

clear  in  this  case  than  in  the  others  is  the  emergence  of  the  social  motive: 
industrial  unionism  is  the  best  type  of  union  for  fighting,  but  it  is  at  the 
same  time  the  only  type  suitable  for  purposes  of  production  and  par- 
ticipation in  the  control  and  management  of  the  industry.  Only  whe^n^ 
organized  as  an  industry  can  the  workers  learn  to  think  of  their  union 
activities  as  a  part  of  that  industry,  and  to  regard  themselves  as  in  any 
sense  responsible  for  furnishing  society  with  the  product.  It  is  significant 
that  amongst  far-seeing  workers  it  is  this  consideration  even  more  than 
that  of  increased  bargaining  power  that  is  leading  to  the  rapid  spread 
of  industrial  unionism. 

These  instances  are  sufficient  to  indicate  the  interplay  between  the 
two  motives;  they  make  plain  how  actions  originating  spontaneously 
for  private  advantage  come  to  possess  social  significance  and  are  con- 
sciously advocated  in  its  behalf.    To  nearly  every  policy  of  the  unions 
both  motives  have  applied.     Some  men,  indeed,  have  been  and  will 
remain  actuated  almost  wholly  by  the  first  alone;  others  place  great_ 
emphasis  on  the  second.  ^The  relative  intensity  oi  the  two  at  different 
times  of  American  history  Has  depended  to  a  large  extent  upon  social  v' 
conditions.     When  the  workers  have  met  the  active  hostility  of  the  ( 
employers  aided  and  abetted  by  the  apathy  and  indifference  of  the 
general  public,  if  not  its  actual  enmity,  they  have  naturally  tended  to 
fight  for  their  status  and  to  disregard,  unless  impelled  by  some  magnetic 
leader,  the  larger  social  consequences  of  their  acts.    When  public  interest  , 
has  proved  more  favorable,  when  strength  of  organization  or  weakness 
of  capital  has  left  them  a  brief  respite  in  their  fight  for  existence,  they 
have  uniformly  developed  an  interest  in  the  better  functioning  of  societyj 
and  a  regard  for  far-reaching  plans  of  social  modification  and  control 
that  lends  much  color  to  the  contention  that  the  labor  movement  needs 
but  half  a  chance  to  become  the  most  forward-looking  element  of  the 
community,  and  to  surprise  even  omniscient  editors  with  the  breadth  f 
of  its  sympathies. 

The  significance  of  this  interpretation  for  our  main  problem  is  ob-  | 
vious.    It  means,  hi  short,  that  to  secure  that  general  feeling  of  social 
responsibility,  that  habit  of  response,  not  to  pecuniary  gain  at  the  ex- 
pense, tacit  or  conscious,  of  the  rest  of  the  community,  but  to  the  re- 
quirements of  society;  to  develop  an  attitude  that  will  make  functional 
service  to  the  community  the  primary  motive  in  economic  life,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  attempt  the  impossible  task  of  creating  in  the  workers' 
minds  something  which  at  present  has  no  existence.     Were  that  the_j( 
case,  were  man  in  no  sense  a  social  animal,  the  future  would  indeed  be  as 


92  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

as  we  have  painteditj  The  task  that  actually  remains  is  surely 
hard^nougn. it  is  to  ioster^what  has  always  been,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  present  in  the  life  of  labor  groups;  it  is  to  endeavor  to  create 
conditions  favorable  to  the  emergence  of  the  second  or  socially-visioned 
strain  that  has  always  beein  in  evidence  in  the  labor  movement,  to  the 
.end  that  it  may  take  its  proper  place  beside  the  first  in  our  economic 
I  life.  It  is  only  when  the  two  are  entirely  merged  into  one,  when  there 
is  no  longer  any  question  of  choice  between  private  advantage  and 
public  weal,  that  man  can  be  said  to  have  reached  the  ideal  set  for  him 
by  the  theorists  of  nineteenth-century  economics.  That  state  is  hardly 
even  within  sight  at  present;  yet  the  persistence  of  the  social  motive 
throughout  the  history  of  American  labor,  and  especially  its  vigor  at 
the  present  moment,  give  adequate  ground  for  at  least  setting  forth  on 
the  difficult  road  of  social  readjustment. 


6.  THE  EFFECTS  OF  THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION 

THROUGHOUT  the  mechanics'  movement  there  was  evident  beneath 
the  surface,  rising  now  and  again  to  a  brief  moment  of  prominence  and 
then  sinking  back  once  more  to  its  wonted  quiet,  the  swell  of  a  new 
factor  in  industry.  It  appears  in  the  speeches  of  delegates  to  conven- 
tions as  something  ominous  in  the  distance,  something  which  their 
methods  failed  to  touch;  and  one  has  the  feeling,  as  one  listens  to  im- 
passioned demands  for  the  restoration  of  the  good  old  times  of  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence,  that  the  more  thoughtful  workers  pause  now 
and  again  to  glance  over  their  shoulders  into  the  misty  future,  only  to 
hasten  to  their  work  lest  it  be  accomplished  too  late — lest  this  strange 
new  peril  arrives  before  the  mechanics  have  strengthened  the  bulwarks 
of  democracy.  For  it  seemed  as  though  Jefferson's  prescience  were  in 
danger  of  verification;  in  the  outlying  towns  of  New  England,  in  the 
districts  about  Philadelphia,  there  was  appearing  the  advance  guard  of 
an  enemy  far  stronger  and  far  more  deadly  than  any  the  workers  or 
their  cherished  agricultural  democracy  had  yet  encountered,  an  enemy 
whose  ravages  in  England  caused  the  American  laborer  to  shudder 
and  pray  that  by  the  grace  of  God  he  be  spared  its  visitations — the 
factory  system. 

No  organization  existed  among  the  early  factory  workers;  what 
labor  difficulties  arose  were  in  the  nature  of  sponteanous  turn-outs 
against  some  reduction  in  wages  or  other  interference  with  wonted 
custom.  Labor  was  too  abundant  and  skill  too  little  required  to  give 
the  few  employers  who  were  operating  mills  much  trouble.  Moreover, 
the  industrial  revolution  made  no  very  real  headway  in  American  life 
until  the  fifties,  and  large  scale  production  did  not  become  general  until 
the  Civil  War  and  the  industrial  era  succeeding  it.  Our  internal  struggle, 
which  settled  the  political  questions  that  for  so  long  had  been  occupy- 
ing the  attention  of  the  nation,  marked  the  real  turning  point  in  our 
economic  development;  thereafter  business  enterprise  and  manufactur- 
ing initiative  became  the  order  of  the  day.  Jefferson's  vision  of  a  nation 
of  contented  farmers  immune  from  the  cities  and  mill  towns  of  Europe 
had  definitely  and  irrevocably  vanished.  Industry  had  come  to  stay; 
if  democracy  in  the  older  sense  were  also  to  remain,  it  must  find  some 
means  of  reconciling  itself  with  the  machine. 


94  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

The  romantic  tale  of  the  industrial  revolution  has  been  often  re- 
counted; the  grim  facts  lying  behind  man's  triumphant  march  of  con- 
quest over  the  secrets  and  the  treasure-houses  of  Nature  are  also  known 
to  those  who  care  for  such  unpleasant  details.  With  them  we  are  not 
concerned.  Our  task  is  rather  to  examine  the  changes  that  were  effected 
in  the  social  situation  in  which  the  workers  found  themselves,  changes 
that  made  their  earlier  theories  and  methods  largely  irrelevant.  We 
have  seen  how  the  mechanics'  movement  was  fought  through  on  a  social 
philosophy  that  had  originated  in  the  mid-eighteenth  century;  we  have 
seen  how  it  reached  before  its  demise  a  form  that  promised  to  remain 
stable  until  some  profound  change  produced  an  entire  realignment  of 
the  forces  of  society.  That  change  came  in  the  industrial  revolution; 
and  it  is  with  that  realignment  that  we  must  now  deal. 

The  fundamental  effect  of  the  industrial  revolution  was  to  take  the 
great  mass  of  the  people,  comparatively  undifferentiated  and  homo- 
geneous, predominantly  agricultural,  which  in  the  eighteenth  century 
comprised  the  overwhelming  bulk  of  the  world's  population,  and  to  in- 
troduce within  that  mass  a  differentiation  of  function  and  a  division 
of  labor  that  made  irrelevant  the  remnants  of  special  classes  that  hung 
over  from  an  earlier  civilization.  In  a  word,  within  a  body  of  men  which 
existed  with  very  few  relations  between  its  members,  which  consisted 
of  innumerable  small  units  set  down  in  villages  and  upon  farms  through- 
out the  world,  all  capable  of  self-support  without  the  aid  of  their  fellows 
from  other  units,  the  industrial  revolution  effected  upon  a  nation-wide 
and  even  a  world-wide  scale  a  complete  social  integration  and  organiza- 
tion. The  important  effect,  socially  speaking,  of  the  invention  of  the 
machine  was  not  the  automobile,  the  telephone,  airplane — those  features 
of  modern  civilization  which  bulk  so  largely  in  our  imaginations.  It 
was  the  division  of  labor  and  the  consequent  organization  of  society  into 
a  single  unit— a  unit  infinitely  larger  and  infinitely  more  complex  than 
that  ideal  of  ancient  times,  the  Greek  city  state. 

But  the  industrial  revolution  produced  not  one,  but  two  entirely  dif- 
ferent bases  of  differentiation.  First,  it  subdivided  the  community  into 
a  number  of  industrial  groups  or  vocations  on  the  basis  of  their  function 
in  production;  and  secondly,  it  produced  a  marked  stratification  into 
classes  on  the  ground  of  their  relation  to  the  market.  The  one  division 
runs  on  lines  of  industrial  technique;  it  is  determined  by  the  machine, 
by  those  physical  processes  necessary  to  turn  raw  materials  into  finished 
products.  The  other  runs  on  lines  of  economic  and  legal  control;  it  is 
determined  by  the  laws  of  property.  The  one  is  fixed  by  man's  knowl- 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  95 

edge  of  nature,  the  other,  by  his  social  conventions,  his  experience  of 
human  nature.  The  one  is  responsive  to  the  trained  technical  expert; 
the  other,  to  the  collective  social  will  of  mankind. 

The  first  basis  of  differentiation,  the  industrial  organization  and  in- 
terdependence of  society,  we  have  already  considered.  Industrial  so- 
ciety is  rapidly  approaching  the  stage  when  it  will  become,  if  indeed  it 
is  not  already,  a  single  machine  in  which  no  part  can  live  isolated  from 
the  rest.  The  elements  are  functionally  differentiated,  and  therefore 
are  all  integral  parts  of  the  whole.  Certain  elements  are  indeed  more 
fundamental  than  others:  a  man  can  live  without  arms  or  legs,  but  not 
without  a  head.  Yet  such  a  piece  of  living  flesh  is  hardly  a  man;  and 
a  society  restricted  entirely  to  its  so-called  "essential  industries"  for 
any  length  of  time  would  resemble  a  bee-hive  rather  than  a  human 
community.  The  loss  of  any  single  part  is  a  direct  loss  to  the  whole; 
the  loss  of  many  parts  makes  the  life  of  the  whole  impossible. 

There  thus  exist  exceedingly  powerful  common  interests  in  favor  of 
the  harmonious  functioning  of  all  parts  of  society;  otherwise  the  entire 
machine  disintegrates.  Were  this  the  only  type  of  division  that  existed 
in  society,  the  vision  of  perfect  and  harmonious  cooperation  that  hovered 
before  the  eyes  of  the  early  political  economists  and  their  liberal  followers 
might  long  ago  have  been  achieved. 

But  in  striking  contrast  to  the  industrial  technique  that  demands 
unity  of  purpose  and  cooperation  is  the  economic  system  that  reflects 
the  most  divergent  of  opposing  and  conflicting  interests.  This  cuts 
squarely  across  the  other  division  lines  and  creates  great  classes  of  men 
upon  the  basis  of  the  relative  distribution  of  the  spoils  of  man's  cam- 
paign against  nature.  These  classes  are  three  in  number:  the  employers, 
or  "capital";  the  wageworkers,  or  "labor";  and  that  much  misunder- 
stood group,  the  "public. "  As  members  of  the  community  organized 
as  a  machine  for  the  production  of  the  necessities  of  civilization,  all 
these  classes  of  course  have  the  great  common  interest  of  aiding  and 
forwarding  the  cooperation  of  all  that  the  social  machine  may  function 
efficiently;  but  as  members  of  their  respective  classes,  their  interests  are 
at  times  diametrically  opposed.  Let  us  examine  these  conflicts  of  in- 
terest in  some  detail. 

The  interests  of  the  employers  are  at  bottom  to  sell  their  products 
in  the  market  at  such  a  price  as  to  make  the  largest  possible  profit. 
The  profit  depends  upon  the  difference  between  the  cost  of  the  article 
and  the  price  at  which  it  can  be  sold.  Hence  it  is  their  interest  to  re- 
duce costs  to  the  minimum  and  to  raise  prices  to  the  maximum  possible. 


96  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

In  a  competitive  market  this  margin  of  profit  tends  to  become  as  slight 
as  will  induce  men  to  engage  in  the  industry,  and  they  aim  to  increase  their 
gain  by  producing  more  articles  upon  which  to  make  this  small  profit. 
But  there  is  a  practical  limit  to  the  amount  of  any  commodity  which 
any  community  can,  under  given  conditions,  absorb;  and  this  limit  is 
in  practice  soon  approached.  The  employer  then  finds  it  to  his  interest 
to  increase  his  price;  and  to  do  so  he  must  either  agree  with  or  combine 
with  his  competitors  to  secure  a  price  that  will  give  them  a  "fair  profit. " 
This  combination,  whether  it  takes  the  form  of  a  monopoly  or  not,  by 
relieving  the  individual  manufacturer  from  competition  at  the  same 
time  makes  it  possible  for  him  to  increase  his  price  to  what  he  thinks 
"the  traffic  will  bear."  That  this  course  of  action  is  pursued,  and 
pursued  to  the  marked  gain  of  the  employer  and  the  expense  of  every- 
one else,  needs  no  proof  in  these  post-war  days  of  the  profiteers.  All 
that  must  be  pointed  out  is  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  deciding  when  a 
"fair  price"  becomes  "profiteering." 

So  long  as  the  market  is  a  strongly  competitive  one,  the  interests  of 
the  employer  are  pretty  much  one  with  those  of  the  consumer  in  pro- 
ducing excellent  goods  at  the  lowest  profits  and  prices.  But  no  one 
thrives  on  "cut-rates"  and  "price- wars";  some  effective  form  of  agree- 
ment is  bound  to  result,  and  in  the  measure  that  it  does  the  interest  of 
the  employer  diverges  from  that  of  the  public.  "It  is  a  fundamental 
law  that  production  is  always  a  question  of  profit,"  authoritatively 
announces  the  president  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation,  and  he 
ought  to  know.1  It  is  carried  on  first,  last,  and  all  the  time,  not  for  the 
needs  of  the  community,  but  for  the  market.  Profit  is  primary,  service 
secondary.  The  higher  the  price,  the  greater  the  profit  to  an  industry 
that  has  eliminated  competition  if  its  product  be  a  necessity.  And 
since  by  a  well-known  principle  of  economics  prices  can  be  raised  either 
by  increasing  the  demand  or  by  reducing  the  supply,  the  capitalist  does 
not  hesitate  to  employ  both  methods  indiscriminately.  Hence  modern 
advertising;  and  hence  the  interesting  device  of  curtailing  production, 
shutting  down  the  plant,  in  order  to  "steady  the  market"  and  keep 
prices  up. 

The  interests  of  the  employer,  who  produces  for  the  market,  are  thus 
often  if  not  fundamentally  opposed  to  those  of  the  public  of  consumers. 
They  lie  in  increasing  prices;  whereas  the  latter's  lie  in  reducing  them. 
It  is  needless  to  add,  also,  the  inefficiency  and  waste,  from  the  stand- 
point of  production,  entailed  by  a  system  which  takes  no  account  of  the 
1 J.  A.  Farrell,  quoted  in  Gleason,  What  the  Workers  Want,  9. 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  97 

varied  needs  of  consumers,  but  throws  upon  the  market  products  which 
bring  good  profits  rather  than  products  which  are  required.  Thus,  for 
instance,  farmers  everywhere  are  flocking  into  automobile  factories 
while  the  cost  of  food  rises  higher  and  higher.  This  lack  of  intelligent 
adaptation  of  means  to  end  is  another  instance  of  the  disparity  of  in- 
terests between  employer  and  public. 

But  the  interests  of  the  capitalist  were  twofold:  not  only  to  increase 
prices,  but  also  to  reduce  costs.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  the  present  in- 
dustrial system  that  it  regards  labor  as  an  element  in  the  costs  rather 
than  in  the  profits.  Consequently  it  is  the  employers'  interest  to  pay 
their  employees  the  lowest  possible  wage  consonant  with  the  maximum 
of  productivity;  to  get  the  most  for  the  least  cost,  the  greatest  return 
for  the  smallest  wage.  In  general,  it  has  been  found  that  higher 
wages  give  the  more  efficient  results,  though  this  is  by  no  means  fully 
conceded  and  in  many  industries  is  not  true.  Slavery,  for  instance, 
insures  a  supply  of  cheap  labor,  but  that  labor  is  not  efficient  and  re- 
quires expenses  for  upkeep  when  it  is  not  needed  as  well  as  when  it  is. 
Production  for  the  market  necessitates  periods  of  full  operation  and 
periods  of  small  output,  good  times  followed  by  periodic  depressions. 
It  is  therefore  to  the  interests  of  the  employer  to  have  a  very  flexible 
supply  of  labor  to  which  he  can  turn  at  once  when  he  needs  help  but 
which  shall  be  no  expense  to  him  when  he  does  not.  The  free  man  has 
the  advantage  over  the  slave  of  not  requiring  any  upkeep  unless  he  is 
actually  employed,  besides  being  more  productive  when  he  is  working 
(if  not  made  lazy  with  too  high  pay).  Hence  the  employer  wants  a  la- 
bor market  plentifully  supplied  with  men  willing  to  work  at  the  wages 
offered;  and  this  inevitably  entails  a  mass  of  unemployed  when  business 
is  not  at  its  peak.  The  hordes  of  migratory  laborers  in  the  west  who 
drift  from  mine  to  farm  and  from  farm  to  lumber  camp  are  only  an  ex- 
treme example  of  a  situation  to  gladden  the  heart  of  any  employer. 

But  great  an  improvement  as  the  free  laborer  is  over  the  slave,  and 
valuable  as  is  his  advantage  over  the  machine  of  not  tieing  up  capital 
when  he  is  not  being  used,  he  does  have  certain  disadvantages.  He  is 
prone  to  hearken  to  agitators,  to  become  restless  and  cause  annoying 
difficulties;  a  machine  is  always  docile  and  dependable.  Hence  of  late 
it  has  seemed  worth  while  to  take  measures  to  keep  the  workers  con- 
tented; it  does  seem  extravagant,  of  course,  but  hi  the  long  run  it  in- 
creases efficiency  and  reduces  costs.  After  all,  men  require  as  great 
care  and  attention  as  machines;  and  so  the  most  up-to-date  employers 
have  installed  labor  managers  to  cultivate  the  human  machine,  and 


98  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

through  scientifically  managing  their  workers  seek  to  produce  contented 
and  dependable  machine-tenders, — an  enterprise  perhaps  most  exten- 
sively carried  on  at  Gary,  Indiana. 

In  general,  then,  the  interests  of  the  employer  as  against  those  of  his 
employees  are  to  obtain  at  the  lowest  prices  consonant  with  efficiency 
reliable  machines  that  will  not  tie  up  capital  when  not  working  but  can 
be  secured  in  a  well-stocked  market  at  the  desired  low  cost. 

The  second  class  that  has  resulted  from  the  industrial  revolution  is 
that  of  the  wage-workers.  Dependent  upon  the  wage-system  for  their 
existence,  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  at  the  employer's  mercy  in  bar- 
gaining for  a  wage  since  they  know  that  if  they  reject  the  wages  he  offers 
someone  else  will  snap  up  the  opportunity,  they  are  always  on  the  brink 
of  unemployment,  always  fearful  lest  they  lose  their  jobs  and  face  star- 
vation. They  have  very  little  reserve  to  fall  back  upon;  when  wages 
stop  they  are  at  the  employer's  mercy  as  soon  as  their  week's  credit 
runs  out.  In  April,  1920,  the  average  weekly  wage  for  factory  workers 
hi  New  York  State  was  $28.45,  which,  even  were  unemployment  abso- 
lutely eliminated,  and  work  continuous,  which  it  never  is,  would  amount 
to  but  $1491.40  a  year — and  the  minimum  amount  necessary  to  sup- 
port a  family  in  decency  in  that  month  was  calculated  as  $2250,  a  year.1 
The  labor  turn-over,  besides,  is  immense,  in  some  plants  as  high  as  two 
and  three  hundred  per  cent  a  year,  which  means  that  a  job  lasts  no  lon- 
ger than  a  few  months. 

No  longer  is  the  bulk  of  the  working  class  made  up  of  the  skilled  ar- 
tisan. The  subdivision  of  function  and  the  increasing  application  of 
machinery  has  not  yet  eliminated  all  skill  from  the  worker's  life,  but 
its  result  has  been  to  create  a  mass  of  machine  tenders — men  and 
women  whose  sole  duty  is  to  stand  by  a  whirring  machine  hour  after  hour 
and  with  monotonous  regularity  make  a  few  simple  motions  over  and 
over  again.  Highly  specialized  and  differentiated,  with  perhaps  hun- 
dreds of  distinct  operations  necessary  to  produce  the  finished  product, 
the  workers  are  yet  coming  to  be  all  equally  unskilled — and  every  day 
a  new  machine  is  installed  to  eliminate  some  process  requiring  intel- 
lectual effort  and  "save  labor,"  which  means  to  save  wages. 

Moreover  the  industrial  revolution  has  in  America  called  forth  a  flood 
of  cheap  alien  labor,  in  part  imported  to  keep  the  labor  market  well 
supplied,  in  part  attracted  by  promises  of  the  golden  age.  These  aliens 
have  commonly  lacked  the  old  American  native  spirit  of  social  equal- 
ity; they  have  brought  with  them  a  habit  of  class  consciousness  and 
1  Bureau  of  Statistics,  State  Industrial  Commission,  N.  Y.  Times,  July  3,  1920. 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  99 

solidarity  within  the  class  which  is  weighty  with  both  good  and  ill  for 
the  future.  They  have  brought  foreign  philosophies,  foreign  reactions, 
foreign  ways  of  thinking.  All  of  these  things  are  profoundly  important 
when  we  remember  that  in  our  basic  industries  some  60%  of  the  work- 
ers are  foreign-born. 

The  interests  of  this  great  class  do  not,  it  is  true,  in  the  long  run 
clash  with  those  of  the  public;  they  themselves  form  too  large  a  portion 
of  the  public  to  permit  that.  But  at  times  and  in  groups  they  seem  to 
oppose  them — the  public  at  least  feels  itself  immediately  attacked. 
They  demand  first  of  all  a  living  wage,  a  wage  that  may  increase  the 
price  of  the  product  for  the  consumer;  and  though  it  ought  to  be  obvi- 
ous that  it  is  to  the  advantage  of  society  to  produce  its  commodities  at 
a  sufficient  remuneration  to  the  workers  to  preserve  their  social  well- 
being,  it  seldom  strikes  the  public  in  this  light.  An  increase  in  wages 
does  generally  mean  an  increase  in  prices;  this  the  public  cannot  forgive. 

Moreover,  it  is  the  interest  of  the  wage-earner  to  raise  his  standard 
of  living;  and  more  leisure  may  mean  lessened  production,  scarcity, 
and  perhaps  famine  prices.  The  solution  is  of  course  to  divert  more 
men  into  that  industry;  but  the  inefficient  system  of  social  control  and 
the  interconnection  of  this  with  other  problems  seems  at  times  to  pre- 
clude such  a  course.  An  eight-hour  day  rather  than  a  twelve  in  the 
steel  industry,  just  when  the  public  finds  its  immediate  interest  in  re- 
ducing the  cost  of  motor  cars  and  structural  steel  for  building  houses, 
just  when  the  world  so  urgently  needs  steel — the  public  has  little  sym- 
pathy with  the  steel- workers '  desire  to  raise  their  standards. 

But  the  sharpest  clash  comes  over  the  means  and  not  over  the  end. 
The  weapon  of  labor  is  the  strike — war,  industrial  dislocation,  the  curtail- 
ment of  production  and  the  consequent  inconveniencing  of  the  public.  It 
may  be  to  the  ultimate  advantage  of  the  consumer  to  raise  the  workers' 
standards;  it  is  never  to  his  advantage  to  suffer  from  a  strike.  The  public 
at  best  only  tolerates  strikes;  if  they  touch  it  in  any  vital  spot,  it  at  once 
becomes  more  hostile  than  the  employers.  It  will  force  a  settlement  in 
the  quickest  manner  possible.  The  workers  strike,  knowing  that  the 
public  will  force  a  settlement  and  believing  it  will  be  easier  to  coerce  the 
employers  than  themselves. 

But  the  fundamental  opposition  is  that  between  wage-earners  and 
employers.  In  the  modern  economic  organization  it  is  easy  to  prove  that 
the  employer  can  under  no  circumstances  get  along  without  the  worker, 
that  the  interests  of  capital  and  labor  are  one  to  the  extent  that  it  is 
capital's  interest  to  give  the  worker  what  he  wants  and  get  his  profit  from 


ioo  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  consumer.  But  it  is  far  more  difficult  to  show  how  the  capitalist  is 
necessary  to  the  worker.  Capital,  indeed,  is  as  necessary  as  labor,  capital 
as  the  machine  and  the  raw  material,  the  physical  side  of  industry,  capital 
as  the  knowledge  of  the  technique  of  organization  and  production.  But 
the  capitalist  as  the  one  and  only  source  of  the  necessary  capital — that 
involves  a  long  and  laborious  justification  in  intricate  economic  theory, 
and  even  then  it  fails  to  appeal  with  the  sense  of  a  priori  necessity. 

If  it  is  to  the  employer's  advantages  to  pay  his  workers  as  small  a 
wage  as  possible  with  high  efficiency,  it  is  to  the  workers'  to  receive  as 
much  as  possible.  The  issue  is  direct.  There  are  limits,  of  course;  just  as 
it  seems  unwise  to  reduce  wages  to  a  point  where  no  men  will  accept  work, 
so  it  is  foolish,  under  our  modern  system,  to  raise  them  to  a  point  where 
no  men  will  furnish  capital.  But  within  limits  the  two  interests  are 
mutually  exclusive;  and  there  is  the  further  disquieting  thought  that 
while  the  capitalist  may  be  the  best  source  of  capital,  he  is  by  no  means 
the  only  one.  There  appears,  indeed,  no  theoretical  reason  why  one  man 
or  one  group  of  men  should  not  combine  in  their  persons  the  function  of 
both  workers  and  capitalists,  and  thereby  add  to  the  wages  of  the  laborer 
the  profit  of  the  capitalist.  In  the  measure  that  this  theoretical  possi- 
bility becomes  practicable,  the  very  existence  of  the  capitalist  grows 
inimical  to  the  interest  of  labor. 

Labor  thus  seeks  an  ever  larger  share  of  the  product  of  industry,  an 
ever  rising  standard  of  living.  It  also  demands  permanency  and  security 
of  employment,  thus  conflicting  with  another  of  capital's  interests,  a  very 
elastic  labor  supply.  So  long  as  production  is  carried  on  for  the  market, 
with  its  periodic  fluctuations,  its  surpluses  and  its  depressions,  the  de- 
mand for  security  will  oppose  the  desire  to  lay  off  workers  in  slack  season, 
to  reduce  wages,  and  to  force  overtime  at  the  peak. 

There  is  a  third  point  of  conflict:  capital  requires  complete  docility  and 
obedience.  The  more  closely  a  laborer  can  be  made  to  resemble  a  ma- 
chine, the  greater  the  consequent  profit.  Hence  the  recent  vogue  of 
"scientific  management,"  the  reduction  of  the  few  remaining  elements  of 
skill  and  personal  initiative  that  machine  tending  has  left  the  worker  to  a 
routine-like  monotony  of  repetition.  The  elimination  of  the  unreliable 
human  factor  just  so  far  as  possible — this  is  the  ideal  of  the  modern 
factory  and  its  owner.  To  this  the  worker  flatly  opposes  a  demand  for 
the  opportunity  of  self-expression,  a  refusal  to  become  mechanized  and 
to  be  made  the  slave  of  any  system.  A  recent  advertisement  urges  the 
installation  of  water-coolers  throughout  offices  so  as  to  do  away  with  the 
wasteful  habit  of  conversation  and  relaxation  in  a  trip  to  the  washroom. 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  101 

If  this  spirit  typifies  even  our  office  procedure,  how  much  more  do  we  seek 
to  destroy  in  our  factories  this  inefficient  failing  of  the  human  being  to 
attain  the  perfection  of  iron  and  steel!  The  worker  is  willing  to  sacrifice 
great  financial  gain  to  preserve  some  remnant  of  his  personality;  the 
employer  has  little  interest  but  his  profit. 

The  third  class  to  which  we  have  referred  was  not,  strictly  speaking, 
a  direct  product  of  the  industrial  revolution.  The  best  definition  of  that 
elusive  entity,  "the  public,"  is  that  it  consists  of  those  who  are  left 
over  when  capitalist  and  laborer  have  been  subtracted.  In  any  specific 
sense  it  comprises,  first,  the  farmers,  then  the  professional  and  salaried 
classes,  the  artists,  writers,  and  "intellectuals,"  and  a  portion  of  the 
business  and  commercial  classes — the  clerks,  the  tradesmen,  and  other 
miscellaneous  categories  coming  under  what  the  French  call  la  petite 
bourgeoisie.  In  general,  "  the  public  "  consists  of  all  those  varied  elements 
of  society  not  yet  caught  up  directly  in  the  industrial  machine,  including 
most  of  those  engaged  in  our  manifold  machinery  of  distribution.  It  is 
the  "middle  class"  between  the  employer  and  the  wage-earner.  By 
definition,  with  the  advance  of  the  industrial  revolution  it  is  constantly 
decreasing,  as  tenant  farming  or  the  application  of  capitalism  to  agricul- 
ture grows,  as  industrial  unionism  with  its  constant  inclusion  of  hitherto 
unattached  classes  gains  power.  As  this  process  continues  "the  public" 
ceases  to  be  composed  of  distinct  individuals,  and  tends  more  and  more  to 
give  place  to  the  community  considered  in  the  light  of  one  of  its  interests, 
consumption.  Even  today  the  term  "the  public"  as  commonly  used 
implies  "the  consumer";  its  individual  members  are  usually  allied 
indirectly  in  interest  and  directly  in  sympathy  with  either  capital  or 
labor. 

The  interest  of  "the  public"  or  the  community  as  consumer  is  simple: 
the  uninterrupted  production  of  the  greatest  possible  number  of  com- 
modities at  the  cheapest  possible  prices.  Since  in  a  competitive  market, 
this  interest  merges  into  that  of  the  capitalist,  the  public  favors  "trust 
busting "  and  the  " good  old  days."  But  in  agreeing  with  the  capitalist  it 
clashes  violently  with  labor;  and  since  labor  is  increasingly  becoming 
identical  with  the  public,  a  conflict  of  class  interest  tends  to  merge  into  a 
conflict  of  motives  within  the  individual.  And  in  so  far  as  the  public  is 
composed  of  a  distinct  class,  its  interests  are  opposed  to  both  high  prices 
and  high  wages,  and  irrevocably  to  strikes. 

We  have  now  completed  our  survey  of  the  conflicts  of  interest  between 
the  three  classes  produced  by  the  industrial  revolution.  But  while  such 
an  analysis  of  interests  is  most  suggestive,  it  by  no  means  follows  that 


102  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

these  interests  play  the  only  or  even  the  main  part  in  social  life.  The 
one  fact  that  the  nineteenth  century  taught  the  eighteenth  in  social 
theory,  and  that  our  modern  social  psychology  seems  to  be  establishing 
upon  a  firm  basis,  is  that  men's  actions  rarely  proceed  from  a  rational 
consideration  of  their  interests;  that  they  often,  in  fact,  run  directly 
counter  to  their  personal  advantage.  Interest,  it  is  true,  does  play  a  most 
important  part,  but  only  as  it  forms  the  foundation  for  what  men  believe 
their  interests  to  be;  here  as  so  often  in  man's  life  the  belief  is  practically 
far  more  significant  than  the  actual  fact.  Moreover  there  are  a  thousand 
considerations  that  enter  into  the  humanistic  logic  of  the  industrial 
situation  to  modify  or  even  to  nullify  some  of  the  considerations  already 
alleged;  and  hence  it  will  be  necessary  to  examine  once  again  these  three 
classes,  this  time  with  a  view,  not  to  what  the  objective  facts  of  the 
situation  are,  but  to  what  the  very  human  individuals  concerned  imagine 
them  to  be  and  how  they  react  to  them.  Let  us  consider  the  psychological 
effects  of  the  industrial  revolution  upon  the  three  economic  classes  it 
produced.  And  here  again  we  cannot  do  more  than  represent  typical 
states  of  mind,  which  in  their  entirety  probably  find  exemplification  hi  no 
single  individual. 

The  employer  has,  in  general,  preserved  both  the  method  and  the 
accompanying  state  of  mind  of  the  early  American  pioneer.  When  the 
frontiersman  could  look  around  his  clearing  in  the  forest  and  reflect  upon 
the  riches  that  his  individual  strength  and  skill  had  been  able  to  wring 
from  the  reluctant  grasp  of  Nature,  he  assuredly  had  that  strongest  of  all 
psychological  bases  for  affirming  the  divine  right  of  property,  the  con- 
sciousness of  wealth  entirely  the  product  of  work  well  done.  What 
wonder  that  a  Jim  Hill,  surveying  the  empire  of  the  Northwest,  should 
feel  that  even  though  the  capital  he  started  in  with  was  considerably  less 
than  nothing,  he  had  well  earned  the  right  to  consider  most  of  the  North- 
west as  his  property,  morally  as  well  as  legally?  And  the  history  of 
American  industry  was  in  the  last  century  largely  just  such  a  story  of 
huge  raids  upon  nature  conducted  by  men  of  "masterful  personality." 
That  type  of  industrial  enterprise  has  today  largely  disappeared,  but  the 
attitude  of  mind  that  went  with  it  is  still  the  dominant  attitude  of  Jim 
Hill's  successors. 

The  strongest  factor  in  the  employer's  mind  is  his  profound  sense  of 
property  rights.  "This  is  my  own  business,"  he  feels,  " I  have  created  it 
and  built  it  up,  and  it  belongs  to  me  to  do  with  as  I  will.  Ask  me  humbly 
for  what  you  want,  and  I  may  give  it  to  you  if  I  feel  like  it;  demand  any- 
thing of  mine  as  a  right,  and  I'll  show  you  who  has  the  law  on  his  side 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  103 

when  it  comes  to  rights! "  He  resents  any  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
public  and  its  politicians.  "  Think  of  crack-brained  theorists  coming 
around  to  tell  me  how  to  run  my  own  business!  Let  the  public  keep  off ! " 
And  even  more  incensed  is  he  at  similar  attempts  on  the  part  of  "his 
men."  "What  right  have  my  men  got  to  interfere  with  the  conduct  of 
my  business?  They  owe  their  support  to  the  wages  I  give  them,  and  then 
they  dare  prescribe  to  me  how  I  shall  run  my  plant! "  There  is  no  single 
worker  he  needs;  they  all  need  him.  "If  you  don't  like  the  pay,  get  out! 
There  are  plenty  of  other  jobs  for  you."  But  of  course  not  in  that  indus- 
try; "undesirables"  are  well  provided  against.  What  angers  him  more 
than  anything  else,  however,  is  to  be  told  whom  he  shall  and  whom  he 
shall  not  employ.  The  right  of  discharge,  the  right  of  "hiring  and  firing," 
is,  with  reason,  the  most  precious  of  all  to  him :  for  he  has  by  it  absolute 
power  over  the  income  of  his  employees.  It  is  to  him  what  the  right  to 
strike  is  to  the  worker,  except  that  it  is  immensely  stronger. 

It  is  true  that  in  these  days  of  great  corporations,  of  boards  of  directors 
and  of  "public  service,"  few  employers  care  to  give  vent  publicly  to 
such  sentiments.  Nowadays  it  is  not  the  rights  of  the  business  man  that 
are  aired;  industry  has  become  instead  one  great  charitable  enterprise 
wholeheartedly  devoted  to  the  support  of  indigent  widows  and  orphans. 
Though  it  break  their  hearts  the  men  at  the  head  of  modern  corporations 
are  unable  to  grant  the  demands  of  their  men  and  of  the  public;  they  have 
a  great  sacred  trust  to  think  always  of  the  wolf  at  the  door  of  the  lone 
widow.  And  probably  a  large  part  of  their  solicitude  is  quite  genuine; 
though  one  wishes  it  were  more  in  evidence  during  transactions  in  high 
finance  upon  the  stock-market.  But  in  the  case  of  the  men  at  the  head  of 
industries  the  position  of  trustee  has  not  altered  their  basic  sense  of 
personal  proprietorship.  The  determining  motives  lying  back  of  their 
actions  are  fundamentally  those  more  candidly  expressed  a  generation 
ago. 

Second  only  to  this  sense  of  ownership  is  the  desire  to  secure  the 
maximum  of  production,  both  in  hours  and  by  the  piece,  at  the  minimum 
cost.  This  translates  itself  into  a  feeling  of  the  sanctity  of  conditions 
established  at  an  earlier  period.  It  is  not  "right"  for  men  to  want  to 
stop  work  when  the  machines  are  willing  to  go  on  turning  out  salable 
products.  It  is  not  "  right "  for  them  to  want  more  time  oft  for  lunch,  and 
as  for  the  five-day  week — such  blasphemy  against  the  moral  laws  of  the 
universe  is  stupefying.  Every  minute  taken  from  possible  work  is  a 
minute  robbed  from  the  employer's  profits. 

Nor  is  it  right  for  a  wage-earner  to  receive  more  than  a  certain  amount 


104  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

a  week.  That  men  who  work  with  their  hands  should  be  able  to  afford 
diamonds,  to  dress  as  well  as  their  employers,  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of  an 
auto — such  a  state  of  affairs  is  utterly  subversive  of  the  moral  order. 
Workingmen  have  always  been  accustomed  to  a  certain  standard;  if  a  rise 
in  prices  necessitates  a  rise  in  wages  to  preserve  a  standard,  that,  while 
foolish  and  to  be  opposed,  is  nevertheless  understandable.  But  that  a 
common  workingman  should  desire  to  improve  his  standard,  to  live 
better  than  he  is  living, — that  is  far  too  revolutionary  for  any  employing 
mind  to  grasp.  Not  that  the  owner  of  the  mill  would  deny  to  any  man 
the  right  to  rise  in  the  world,  to  reach  the  stupendous  success  of  million- 
airedom;  that  is  the  goal  still  freely  offered  to  all  Americans.  But  the  rise 
to  luxury  must  be  by  way  of  the  approved  "up  from  the  masses"  path; 
the  worker  must  himself  become  an  employer.  That  he  should  achieve 
a  measure  of  luxury  and  still  remain  a  worker  is  not  to  be  tolerated;  that 
the  masses  themselves  should  rise  is  unthinkable. 

Firm  as  is  the  conviction  of  the  ultimate  Tightness  of  "  reasonable 
wages "  and  "honest  work "  to  keep  the  cosmos  in  order,  the  obvious  facts 
of  the  increase  of  efficiency  that  comes  with  a  higher  standard  have 
finally  managed  to  penetrate  most  minds.  Overwork,  under-nourish- 
ment,  and  ill-health  are  qualities  that  men  can  be  taught  to  regard  as 
undesirable  in  employees  as  in  other  cattle.  The  striking  success  of 
ventures  like  Robert  Owen's  and  Henry  Ford's  aids  a  latent  sense  of 
humanitarianism,  although  there  exists  the  lurking  suspicion  that  it  is  not 
"right"  to  treat  mere  laborers  so  well:  it  is  sooner  or  later  bound  to 
"spoil"  them.  There  is  indeed  much  experience  to  fortify  such  a  con- 
clusion. "Welfare  work"  and  high  wages  rarely  succeed  in  keeping  men 
"contented."  They  tend  rather  to  provoke  thought  and  to  lead  to  new 
demands;  hence,  thinks  the  employer,  a  compromise  had  best  be  struck' 
somewhere  between  sweatshop  methods  and  lavish  paternalism. 

This  eternal  Tightness  of  the  established  distinctions  rests  upon  a 
generally  frank  and  candid  acceptance  of  an  aristocratic  absolutism  as 
the  only  method  for  governing  industry.  No  employer  can  understand 
the  charge  that  he  is  seeking  to  "oppress"  his  men,  to  keep  them  down 
and  deprive  them  of  opportunities  for  advancement.  He  knows  he  is 
always  eagerly  searching  for  "good  men,"  for  men  who  have  in  them  the 
stuff  of  employers  like  himself.  The  employer  is  on  the  lookout  for 
"strong  men,"  executives,  bosses,  foreman,  managers,  and  other  capable 
exponents  of  his  ideas  and  masterful  lieutenants  for  his  purposes.  These 
he  is  willing  to  aid  by  promoting  them  to  his  own  class;  and  in  the  past 
the  men  perhaps  most  able  to  direct  and  guide  the  forces  of  labor,  some- 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  105 

ics  unconsciously,  sometimes  with  conscious  purpose,  have  been 
drawn  off  in  just  such  a  manner. 

But  together  with  the  willingness  to  recognize  native  ability  wherever 
found  is  coupled  the  equally  firm  conviction  that  the  great  mass  of  work- 
ers are  distinctly  inferior  men,  capable  only  of  being  led  and  directed. 
Immigration  has  added  racial  to  economic  prejudice;  the  workers  are 
foreigners,  hunkies,  dagoes,  hardly  human  beings.  Americans  and  able 
men  in  general  are  alone  able  to  carry  on  industry;  without  this  leaven  in 
the  mass  the  country  would  crumble  to  ruins.  What  use  is  it  to  talk 
about  other  "systems"  of  economic  life?  No  system  could  alter  the  fact 
that  the  many  must  toil  and  suffer  while  the  few  control,  direct,  and  reap 
the  advantage.  The  city  states  of  ancient  times  had  no  firmer  supporter 
of  the  theory  of  natural  aristocracy  than  the  magnates  of  the  industrial 
age.  The  best  are  on  top;  the  rest  owe  them  implicit  obedience. 

But  this  faith  in  aristocracy  has  not  yet  become  attached  to  a  heredi- 
tary institution.  It  is  tempered  by  a  strong  belief  in  the  efficacy  of 
natural  selection.  Let  things  work  out  for  themselves;  provided  no  one 
interferes,  the  good  will  be  bound  to  rise  to  the  surface.  The  honest 
and  capable  workman  will  succeed;  at  least,  the  workman  possessed  of 
the  energy  and  personal  initiative  requisite  to  be  a  leader  in  the  modern 
age.  "  I  succeeded.  Why  not  other  good  men? "  There  is  a  sincere 
belief  in  the  moral  duty  of  laisser-faire  and  of  competition  to  weed  out 
the  unfit.  Yet  at  the  same  time  the  sancity  of  private  property  is  firmly 
upheld,  and  men  are  ever  ready  to  resort  to  the  courts  and  to  the  govern- 
ment when  a  too  generous  policy  of  laisser-faire  seems  to  be  going  against 
them.  For  the  widows  and  orphans,  of  course,  require  careful  protection. 
And  lastly  there  is  a  sense  of  benevolent  paternalism  which  every 
employer  feels  to  some  extent  towards  his  employees.  It  is  to  him  as 
though  somehow  he  is  conducting  a  great  philanthropic  enterprise  for 
the  sake  of  his  mill-hands.  "I  am  giving  (sic)  them  work;  they  ought  to 
be  profoundly  grateful  to  me  for  it.  Where  would  they  be  if  I  had  not 
taken  them  in,  clothed  them  and  fed  them?  And  now  they  show  no 
gratitude  at  all — they  want  more!  With  all  I'm  doing  for  them,  with 
my  new  rest-room  and  the  sanitary  wash-room,  they  must  be  thoroughly 
contented!"  And  although  in  his  heart  he  knows  he  would  never  have 
provided  better  working  conditions  had  not  his  expert  proved  how 
greatly  they  would  increase  his  output,  he  regards  every  outlay  made  on 
the  health  and  well-being  of  his  employees  as  somehow  a  direct  gift  to 
them.  In  the  face  of  the  most  direct  testimony  he  cannot  conceive  that 
his  men  are  discontented.  "They  have  absolutely  no  grievance;  I  am 


io6  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

doing  everything  for  them."  All  labor  unrest  is  due  to  malicious  inter- 
ference from  the  outside:  self-seeking  labor  agitators,  walking-delegates, 
foreign  gold,  alien  spies— there  is  nothing  too  extreme  or  too  fantastic 
for  him  to  assign  as  the  cause  of  the  otherwise  quite  unaccountable 
unrest  among  his  men.  Perhaps  he  is  seeking  to  salve  his  own  conscience 
and  arguing  as  much  to  convince  himself  as  anyone  else.  For  the  sake 
of  his  workers  themselves  and  their  own  interests,  which  he  alone  knows 
best,  he  seeks,  like  the  coal  companies  of  West  Viriginia  or  like  the  Steel 
Corporation  to  build  a  wall  around  his  plant  and  keep  the  men  pure 
and  undefiled.  Keep  off  the  agitator,  and  he  will  be  glad  to  improve  the 
lot  of  his  men  in  any  way  than  will  not  affect  his  profits. 

Such  is  the  portrait  of  the  type  "employer,"  repeated  with  variations 
in  countless  factories,  and  happily  already  disappearing  in  many.  Es- 
sentially a  product  of  the  industrial  revolution,  he  is  confronted  by 
another  product,  the  worker.  In  the  life  of  the  worker  the  fundamental 
fact  is  insecurity — insecurity  and  instability.  From  a  society  founded 
on  status,  said  Maine,  we  have  progressed  to  one  founded  on  contract. 
This  progress  means  for  the  worker  that  no  longer  can  he  count,  as  once 
he  did,  upon  nature  to  furnish  her  crops  with  approximate  regularity* 
He  must  always  have  a  job;  when  he  has  none  he  must  get  one,  when  he 
has  got  one  he  must  keep  it.  Any  moment  he  may  fall  from  the  ranks 
of  the  wage-earners  and  join  the  want  of  the  unemployed.  Fear  is  his 
dominant  motive — fear  of  losing  his  job.  It  is  little  wonder  the  motive 
to  "make  work" — to  produce  less  than  he  otherwise  might  so  as  to 
stretch  out  his  job — is  very  strong;  mistaken  as  it  may  be,  it  is  the 
workers'  form  of  thrift  and  providing  for  the  morrow.  The  future  hangs 
over  him  threateningly  like  a  dark  cloud — not  the  future  of  old  age,  or 
even  of  next  year,  but  the  future  of  next  month,  of  next  week,  of  tomorrow. 
Everything  must  give  way  to  the  course  of  immediate  advantage.  Only 
as  he  gains  a  more  settled  position  is  he  able  to  take  a  longer  and  more 
comprehensive  view.  Hence  his  readiness  to  snatch  at  any  stabilizing 
factor  offered  him.  Benefits,  workman's  insurance,  pensions — if  only 
they  be  immediate  enough  he  eagerly  grasps  them.  Old-age  pensions, 
being  more  remote,  make  less  appeal. 

The  worker  fears  nothing  so  much  as  losing  his  job;  he  hates  nothing 
so  much  as  working  on  it.  His  loathing  for  the  machine  and  for  the  daily 
task  of  tending  it  becomes  at  time  unbearable.  Fortunately  stern 
necessity  usually  soon  dulls  his  sensibilities.  No  one  who  has  not  worked 
nine  or  ten  hours  in  a  modern  factory,  with  its  ceaseless  whirring  of 
machinery,  its  unending  noise,  its  atmosphere  of  monotonous  repetition, 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  107 

above  all  the  impression  it  gives  of  never  ceasing  or  altering  its  pace  for 
a  single  minute;  no  one  who  does  not  know  what  it  is  to  feel  that  you 
cannot  stop,  cannot  slow  down,  cannot  spurt  a  little  and  then  rest,  that 
you  must  become  another  creature  of  tireless  iron  limbs  like  your  pace- 
maker, can  realize  the  horror  with  which  men  come  to  regard  the  fac- 
tory. The  moment  the  worker  enters  the  door  his  personality  departs 
and  his  individuality,  whatever  remnants  he  is  able  to  preserve  outside, 
oozes  away,  leaving  him  worse  than  a  machine — a  machine's  slave. 
Most  workers  manage  to  achieve  a  patient  endurance;  with  the  years 
their  first  rebellion  is  deadened.  But  many  can  never  adapt  themselves 
to  it;  their  natures  demand  some  change  and  excitement,  they  remain 
on  one  job  for  a  new  months,  then  drift  away  to  another.  Hence  in 
part  our  tremendous  labor  turn-over.  Hatred  of  machine-tending  can 
overcome  even  fear  of  losing  one's  job. 

Modern  civilization  has  yet  to  meet  the  human  problem  of  the  ma- 
chine. The  worker  can  think  only  in  terms  of  shorter  hours,  more 
lesiure  for  relaxation;  how  to  get  away  from  the  machine  as  long  as 
possible.  His  individual  initiative  and  responsibility  are  slowly  crushed 
and  atrophied;  they  are  not  required  to  watch  machines.  He  develops 
oftentimes  a  dull  stolid  sense  of  despair;  of  the  utter  futility  of  attempting 
to  think  ahead  to  the  morrow.  The  machines  will  go  on — on— on— , 
and  he  will  go  on — on — on — with  them  until  he  is  no  longer  wanted. 
What  can  a  man  do  against  those  iron  masters?  It  is  useless  to  attempt 
to  change  the  "  system  " ;  it  is  irrevocably  fixed  by  a  malignant  destiny. 
It  will  go  on  and  on  until — and  it  is  just  in  this  attitude  of  mind  that  the 
Marxian  sweep  of  history  finds  its  strongest  support  among  the 
workers — until  something  happens.  The  machines  finally  break; 
will  not  the  Great  Machine  break  too,  with  a  resounding  crash? 
Until  then  we  must  push,  pull,  screw, — push,  pull,  screw, — push,  pull, 
screw, — 

This  is  the  usual  result  among  the  older  men  and  women;  with  the 
young  folks  nature  is  stronger.  A  day's  life  must  be  crowded  into  a  few 
hours  of  evening;  when  work  is  at  last  over  flesh  and  blood  rebounds 
all  the  more  strongly.  Excitement,  artificial  pleasure,  the  movie,  the 
dance-hall — these  are  the  only  available  outlets.  What  wonder  that 
carpe  diem  reigns  as  the  philosophy  of  most  young  workers — that  im- 
providence and  extravagance  are  the  dominant  strain  in  their  lives? 
It  is  at  least  better  than  the  dull  despair  of  their  elders. 

One  determination  is  left — not  to  allow  any  decrease  in  their  standard 
of  life  if  it  can  possibly  be  avoided,  not  to  sink  any  lower  into  the  pit. 


io8  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

And  coupled  with  this  is  an  intense  yearning  for  improvement,  a  dim 
hope  of  eventually  rising  above  their  squalid  surroundings.  As  despair 
of  ever  lifting  themselves  out  alone  takes  possession  of  them,  their 
hopes  and  desires  pass  over  into  a  great  passion  for  social  change.  The 
father  will  toil  and  save  "that  my  children  may  not  have  to  go  through 
what  I  have  gone  through";  but  when  he  fails  he  turns,  and  even  more 
his  children  turn,  to  rising  riot  above  but  with  their  fellows.  Apocalyptic 
visions  of  a  future  life  on  earth  appeal  to  the  young;  they  at  least  fur- 
nish an  outlet  for  the  pent-up  emotions  and  the  suppressed  desires 
crushed  by  the  machine.  Utopias  arise  again  and  again  as  a  way  of 
relief  and  a  dream  of  consolidation.  Some  men  prefer  the  romance  of 
Marx  to  the  romance  of  the  movies.  It  is  indeed  strange  how  much  of 
patient  thought  is  left  over  for  devotion  to  practicable  schemes  for 
action. 

Gradually  the  hatred  of  the  machine  crystallizes  into  a  hatred  of  the 
entire  system;  it  comes  to  be  symbolized  in  hatred  of  the  "capitalist," 
regarded  as  the  devilish  fiend  who  invented  and  applied  the  system 
rather  than  as  the  entirely  unintentional  profiter  by  it.  The  impersonal 
economic  conflict  becomes  personalized;  it  is  treated  in  terms  of  love 
and  hate,  of  will  and  purpose,  when  both  sides  are  largely  irresponsible 
for  their  actions.  Against  the  "capitalist"  the  worker  unites  in  mind 
if  not  in  fact.  The  group  loyalty  that  arises  within  a  small  body  of 
workers,  with  its  deep  hatred  of  the  crime  of  scabbing  or  treason  and  its 
substitution  of  cooperation  for  competition,  gradually  spreads  to  larger 
and  larger  groups,  while  at  the  same  time  the  forces  of  social  loyalty 
and  patriotism  seem  to  shrink  to  the  same  compass,  and  the  two  unite 
in  devotion  to  class.  As  society  comes  to  be  regarded  as  a  battle-field, 
and  life  a  struggle  against  the  capitalists,  more  and  more  stress  is  laid 
on  the  virtues  of  combat:  treachery,  treason,  failure  to  cooperate,  be- 
come the  supreme  crimes,  and  loyalty  and  self-sacrifice  the  supreme 
virtues.  The  solidarity  of  labor  increases;  class  consciousness  comes  to 
dominate  its  actions.  Within  the  group,  individual  aims  are  subordinated 
to  group  aims;  outside,  the  latter  are  supreme.  And  they  are  a  desire 
for  security  and  for  improved  and  eventually  equal  status. 

In  describing  the  attitude  of  "the  public"  the  peculiar  indefiniteness 
surrounding  that  body  makes  generalizing  difficult.  If  it  be  regarded  as 
the  entire  community  taken  as  consumer,  its  mind  is  obviously  pro- 
foundly modified  by  its  other  interests.  Perhaps  the  largest  single  item 
going  to  make  up  the  attitude  of  "the  public"  is  the  oracular  voice  of 
the  metropolitan  editor;  for  those  whose  business  does  not  lead  them  to 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  109 

take  sides  directly  it  is  the  molding  force.  It  has  taught  them  that 
they  have  paramount  interests  that  are  apt  to  coincide  with  those  of 
the  capitalists. 

But  in  so  far  as  "the  public"  represents  an  independent  attitude,  it 
is  in  general  one  of  absolute  indifference  to  industrial  struggles.  Es- 
pecially is  this  true  of  the  farmer,  who  in  economic  disputes  does  not 
usually  suffer  any  inconvenience.  But  at  times  the  public  gives  an  im- 
pulsive, unreasoning,  and  usually  not  very  long  sustained  approbation 
to  the  efforts  of  the  "oppressed"  to  obtain  "justice" — to  the  desire  of 
the  classes  worst  off  to  rise  to  the  level  of  their  fellow-workers.  Its  hu- 
manitarian motives  are  easily  aroused  and  as  easily  extinguished;  and 
it  is  of  course  the  aim  of  both  employer  and  employee  to  manipulate 
this  impulse  to  his  own  advantage.  For  while  capital  can  win  a  strike 
against  public  opinion,  such  an  achievement  is  very  difficult  indeed  for 
labor.  And  while  the  public  will  support  labor  so  long  as  it  thinks  it  is 
trying  to  approximate  the  standards  of  the  better-paid  workers,  when 
any  attempt  is  made  to  raise  those  standards  themselves  the  public  at 
once  ceases  to  sympathize  and  regards  the  union  as  a  monopoly  bent 
on  raising  prices.  It  is  this  fact  that  in  a  strike  forms  the  basis  of  the 
propaganda  campaigns  on  both  sides;  if  the  workers  can  make  it  appear 
that  they  have  been  markedly  worse  off  than  most  of  their  fellows,  the 
sympathy  of  the  public  is  assured. 

But  when  once  the  interests  or  the  convenience  of  the  public  them- 
selves are  touched,  which  with  the  growing  industrialization  and  organ- 
ization of  society  is  bound  to  become  increasingly  frequent,  the  public 
is  aroused  to  a  self-interest  far  surpassing  that  of  the  capitalist  him- 
self, a  self-interest  all  the  stronger  in  its  supreme  and  unintelligent  short- 
sightedness. It  demands  cheapness  and  low  prices  for  the  present,  no 
matter  what  the  ultimate  results;  the  treatment  of  government  em- 
ployees is  a  significant  case  in  point.  The  postal  clerks,  the  federal  em- 
ployees, the  school-teachers,  are  all  woefully  underpaid,  and  the  future 
of  the  country  is  jeopardized  to  save  a  cent  or  two  on  the  tax-rate. 
That  its  passion  for  cheapness  is  not  partial,  but  falls  alike  on  the  em- 
ployer and  the  laborer,  is  shown  by  its  attitude  toward  street-car  fares. 
It  is  willing  to  disrupt  service  and  drive  companies  into  bankruptcy 
and  suspension  before  it  will  consent  to  a  rise  in  fares. 

The  supreme  disregard  the  public  displays  of  other  interests  has  a 
most  important  bearing  on  the  state-ownership  plans  of  the  socialists. 
President  Gompers  was  right  in  the  Montreal  convention  of  the  A.  F. 
L.  in  calling  attention  to  the  danger  that  confronts  workers  under 


no  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

this  type  of  government  ownership.  It  may  not  be  so  conclusive 
as  he  imagines,  but  it  should  at  least  give  pause  to  too  eager 
reformers. 

But  where  the  public  is  most  concerned  is  in  the  industrial  disputes 
growing  out  of  the  use  of  labor 's  weapon,  the  strike.  As  strikes  become 
more  and  more  inconveniencing,  as  all  industries  increasingly  take  on 
the  nature  of  public  service  utilities,  the  public 's  wrath  is  aroused.  It 
demands  unconditional  peace,  peace  at  any  price.  "Settle  the  strike 
at  once,  and  let  none  ever  happen  again,"  is  its  immediate  verdict,  un- 
tainted by  any  knowledge  of  actual  conditions.  Of  all  the  vast  and  in- 
tricate problems  of  economic  adjustment  that  makes  strikes  at  times 
the  lesser  of  two  evils,  it  knows  not  a  whit  and  cares  less.  Of  the  justice 
or  injustice  of  the  contentions  of  the  two  disputants,  it  is  quite  oblivi- 
ous; it  is  equally  willing  to  pass  Adamson  laws  or  enjoin  coal-miners, 
if  it  can  only  preserve  the  peace. 

This  powerful  engine  will  serve  those  who  are  able  to  manipulate  it. 
The  strategy  is  to  make  it  appear  that  it  is  the  other  side  that  is  pre- 
venting a  settlement,  or  that  is  the  easier  to  bludgeon  into  quietude. 
So  far  the  employers  have  generally  been  able  to  utilize  this  desire  for 
peace  at  all  costs  in  their  own  interests,  but  it  is  equally  possible  for 
labor,  as  it  increases  in  strength,  to  compel  an  outraged  public  to  force 
the  acceptance  of  its  demands.  The  difficulty  of  coercing  a  functional 
group  will  make  it  easier  and  easier  to  compel  the  employers  to  give  way 
for  the  public  weal.  For  the  public  is  ever  crying,  "Peace!  Peace! 
Peace  at  any  price!" 

This,  then,  has  been  the  most  important  social  consequence  of  the 
industrial  revolution:  this  stratification  of  society  into  great  classes 
whose  interests  are  far  from  identical  and  whose  frequent  clashes  fre- 
quently upset  the  delicate  workings  of  that  other  great  organization, 
the  industrial  machine.  Without  a  knowledge  of  these  classes  and  their 
attitudes  it  is  impossible  to  understand  the  modern  labor  movement 
or  its  aims.  But  before  preceding  to  the  activities  which  men  facing 
these  conditions  have  been  led  to  engage  in,  let  us  pause  to  ask  what 
the  effect  has  been  on  the  traditional  American  social  ideal.  An  agri- 
cultural democracy  was  what  our  country  first  aimed  to  be;  an 
agricultural  democracy  was  the  goal  of  the  mechanics'  movement. 
How  has  that  ideal  been  modified?  What  is  left  of  the  old  farmer 
equality? 

Assuredly  the  Yankee  farmer  type  has  almost  disappeared;  industry 
demands  specialization,  differentiation,  the  antithesis  of  the  all-around 


The  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  1 1 1 

jack-of-all-trades.  And  between  the  classes,  between  different  capi- 
talists and  between  the  various  members  of  "the  public"  there  are 
chasms  so  wide  that  it  seems  sheer  folly  even  to  mention  equality.  The 
goods  of  life  were  probably  never  so  unevenly  distributed  as  today. 
Yet  nevertheless  we  have  seen  how  within  the  laboring  class  this  ap- 
proximate equality  is  steadily  growing — equality  no  longer  of  simi- 
larity but  equality  of  the  parts  of  an  organic  whole.  And  as  an  ideal  it 
is  more  potent  than  ever,  because  it  has  been  stripped  of  the  elements 
of  sameness  and  identity  of  function  to  become  one  of  equality  of  value 
and  of  worth.  And  already  the  gap  formerly  existing  between  the 
"public"  as  a  whole  and  the  worker  has  been  closed  in;  doctors  and 
bricklayers  enjoy  not  dissimilar  incomes. 

Liberty,  essentially  a  relation  between  equals,  has  suffered  more  se- 
riously from  the  disparity  between  the  classes.  It  has  tended  to  relapse 
into  the  older  "liberty"  of  the  bellum  omnium  contra  omnes;  economic 
aristocracy  has  played  havoc  with  the  pioneer's  freedom.  The  liberty  of 
doing  as  one  likes  has  disappeared  with  industrial  organization,  and  as 
yet  little  of  the  liberty  of  free  cooperation  has  taken  its  place.  The  older 
"rights",  notably  the  "freedom  of  contract",  have  been  kept  alive 
largely  in  the  interests  of  the  stronger  party;  they  are  otherwise  paid  a  lip- 
homage,  but  have  been  gradually  deprived  of  their  reality.  The  old 
freedom  has  indeed  suffered  a  decline,  while  the  new  has  hardly  yet 
been  born. 

Fraternity  as  a  general  social  cohesive,  binding  all  citizens  together, 
has  probably  lessened,  though  in  great  crises,  like  the  war,  it  has  shown 
remarkable  vitality.  But  as  a  tendency  to  act  in  concert,  to  cooperate 
rather  than  to  go  it  alone,  as  a  really  strong  group  motive,  fraternity 
has  vastly  increased.  Seldom  have  men  been  so  closely  bound  together 
as  they  are  in  their  union  groups;  even  the  employers  have  found  count- 
less associations  for  joint  activity.  And  within  the  classes  an  increasing 
class-consciousness  is  welding  men  into  a  single  purpose.  Between 
classes,  however,  there  is  little  but  bitterness  and  strife.  It  almost 
seems  as  though  the  increase  within  groups  had  been  made  at  the  expense 
of  the  larger  social  solidarity. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  these  modifications,  there  has  been  a  marked  persist- 
ence, albeit  in  an  altered  form,  of  the  old  American  ideal  of  Democracy. 
The  workers  in  increasing  numbers  are  demanding  a  more  equal  status 
in  society,  a  more  secure  position.    The  fanning  ideal  has  been  trans-  \ 
lated  into  industrial  terms.    Liberty  has  remained  as  an  ideal  of  group  ' 
rather  than  of  individual  activity,  of  free  cooperation  within  and  be- 


ii2  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

tween  groups.    And  fraternity,  as  group  and  class  solidarity,  as  a  longed- 
for  social  aim,  has  never  ceased  to  inspire  the  workers. 

The  industrial  revolution  has  both  united  society  in  inextricable 
bonds  and  split  it  far  asunder.  The  great  social  problem  is  how  to  bridge 
the  chasm  between  the  industrial  organization  and  the  economic  stratifi- 
cation of  modern  civilization.  What  has  labor  succeeded  in  doing  to 
solve  it? 


7,  THE  CONFLICT  OF  THEORIES  AND  THE  TRIUMPH  OF 
BUSINESS  UNIONISM 


panic  of  1837,  so  disastrous  to  the  mechanics'  movement,  in- 
augurated a  period  of  hard  times  that  did  not  end  until  about  1850, 
when  the  gold  of  California  revived  trade.  During  this  interval  the 
constant  fear  of  unemployment,  scarcely  removed  by  the  growing  influx 
of  Irish  laborers,  kept  the  workers'  organizations  weak  and  concentrated 
their  efforts  on  retaining  any  job  they  might  have.  Until  the  brief 
period  of  prosperity  from  1851  to  1855  they  kept  their  own  counsel, 
seeking  as  best  they  could  to  remain  above  water.  In  industrial  questions 
unions  were  superseded  by  a  great  number  of  enthusiastic  and  rather  vis- 
ionary middle-class  "reformers  "  who  with  the  confidence  of  the  Utopian 
offered  their  various  panaceas  for  social  ills.  These  plans  of  social  re- 
generation made  quite  a  stir  hi  the  advanced  press  and  in  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  Boston  and  New  York.  But  they  failed  to  arouse  either  en- 
thusiasm or  emulation  amongst  the  wage-earners.  Amidst  all  the 
welter  of  theories  and  philosophies,  when  every  congress  called  together 
proceeded  duly  to  discuss  at  least  a  dozen  entirely  different  theories  of 
building  society  anew,  there  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  any  real 
labor  movement.  The  worker  was  an  abstract  entity  to  be  saved  and 
reformed;  as  to  what  he  himself  might  want,  he  was  never  consulted. 
Horace  Greeley,  the  shepherd  of  the  whole  flock,  was  strongly  opposed 
to  the  strike  and  to  trade  unions  in  general.  Hence  the  "windy  forties" 
hardly  concern  us  here.  The  following  quotation  reveals  the  general 
attitude  of  the  associationist  follower  of  Owen  or  Fourier  toward  the 
"miserable  compromise  of  the  Working  Men's  Movements":  "We  wish 
however  that  we  could  impress  upon  this  country  the  degrading  little- 
ness and  insufficiency  of  this  attempt  at  a  compromise  of  their  rights, 
for  it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  demeaning  compromise  and  dastardly 
sacrifice  of  their  rights  for  them  to  make  terms  which  only  modifies  the 
condition  but  does  not  change  the  terms  of  dependence  upon  masters. 
In  wretched  England,  where  the  laborer  is  indeed  a  poor  degraded 
helpless  being  it  is  well  that  any  amelioration  can  be  ob  tamed;  but 
here,  where  the  laboring  classes  are  intelligent  and  generally  possess 
the  ability  to  do  full  justice  to  themselves,  it  does  appear  to  us  to  be 
excessively  weak  and  trifling,  for  them  to  talk  about  a  reform  which 


1 14  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

at  the  most  can  relieve  them  temporarily  of  a  few  hours'  oppressive 
toil — can  convert  them  from  12  and  14  to  lo-hour  slaves— but  cannot 
elevate  them  to  the  dignity  of  true  independence!  What  a  force  is 
boasted  American  freedom,  if  free  men  are  reduced  to  such  beggarly 
shifts?  Do  they  not  see  that  they  exhibit  the  badge  of  slavery  in  the 
very  effort  to  mitigate  its  oppression?  Free  men  would  not  talk  about 
terms  which  involve  only  a  question  of  time  of  subjection  to  the  au- 
thority and  will  of  another — they  would  consult  and  act  for  their  own 
good  in  all  things  without  let  or  hindrance!"  1 

Occasionally,  indeed,  a  few  mechanics,  like  the  Cincinnati  iron-molders 
or  like  several  of  the  German  trades,  would  seek  hi  cooperative  enter- 
prises to  imitate  the  associationists,  but  with  little  success  and  with 
less  permanence.  Only  two  movements,  in  fact,  in  this  period  really 
concern  the  workers  themselves:  the  movement  for  the  ten-hour  day  by 
legislation  among  the  factory  workers  of  New  England,  and  the  move- 
ment for  land  reform. 

The  ten-hour  movement  was  really  a  hangover  from  the  earlier  period. 
President  Van  Buren  had  established  it  for  federal  employees  in  1840;  it 
was  now  sought  from  state  legislatures.  But  at  most  of  the  conventions 
called  to  agitate  the  question,  in  Fall  River  in  1844,  in  the  New  England 
Working  Men's  Association,  in  Lowell  among  the  factory  workers,  in 
Lynn,  the  reformers  and  associationists  gained  control  and  passed 
resolutions  in  favor  of  their  plans;  and  it  is  little  wonder  that  the  workers 
took  small  interest  in  such  efforts.  New  Hampshire  passed  a  ten-hour 
law  in  1847,  Pennsylvania  in  1848;  but  not  being  compulsory  these  had 
little  effect. 

Land  reform  was  a  much  more  important  issue.  We  have  already 
seen  how  the  question  of  keeping  the  public  lands  open  so  that  any 
man,  defeated  in  the  economic  contest  in  the  East,  could  go  West  and 
realize  at  once  the  agricultural  ideal,  at  the  same  time  relieving  the 
pressure  in  the  East,  was  of  primary  importance  for  the  American  labor 
movement.  The  workers'  success  was  of  great  advantage  to  them  in- 
dividually, but  it  also  retarded  their  organization.  The  land  reform 
movement  of  the  forties  grew  out  of  the  agrarian  agitation  of  the  pre- 
vious decade,  but  its  real  roots  were  in  the  old  agricultural  ideal  of 
Jeffersonian  democracy.  George  Henry  Evans  secured  support  for  his 
"new  agrarianism"  because  he  founded  it  firmly  in  the  traditional 
philosophy  of  natural  rights.  In  1830  he  had  advocated"  a  division  of 
private  property  as  a  consequence  of  the  social  contract  theory;  now  he 
1  Phalanx,  May  18,  1844. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          115 

turned  his  attention  to  public  land,  and  sought  to  give  every  man  his 
equal  share  of  it.  The  National  Reform  Association  which  he  founded 
sought  freedom  of  the  public  lands,  together  with  homestead  exemption 
from  debt  laws,  and  a  limitation  of  the  amount  of  land  one  man  could 
own.  These  latter  aims,  and  the  elaborate  deductions  of  the  whole 
theory  from  the  natural  rights  premises,  found  little  acceptance  among 
the  workers  themselves,  but  the  belief  that  there  were  enough  public 
lands  to  last  at  least  a  thousand  years  made  Evans's  impassioned  ap- 
peals to  "Vote  yourself  a  farm"  quite  alluring.1  The  National  In- 
dustrial Congresses  which  met  annually  from  1845  to  1856  carried  on 
considerable  land  reform  agitation,  which  finally  bore  lasting  fruit  in 
the  Homestead  Law  of  1862.  The  kinship  between  this  land  reform 
movement  and  the  early  agricultural  ideal  —  the  desire,  as  it  were,  to 
seize  the  last  chance  offered  to  man  by  Nature's  bounty  in  this  western 
hemisphere  —  is  revealed  in  a  resolution  of  the  New  York  Industrial 
Congress  in  1850:  "That  all  men  are  created  equal  —  that  they  are  en- 
dowed by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which 
are  the  right  to  life  and  liberty,  to  the  fruits  of  their  labor,  to  the  use  of 
such  a  portion  of  the  earth  and  the  other  elements  as^shall  suffice  to 
provide  them  with  the  means  of  subsistence  and  comfort,  to  education 
and  paternal  protection  from  society."  : 

But  with  the  revival  of  prosperity  following  the  discovery  of  gold  in 
California  the  workers  themselves  began  to  take  heart,  and,  forsaking  the 
many  well-intentioned  but  quite  irrelevant  schemes  of  those  who  came 
to  them  as  with  authority,  started  to  reconstruct  some  semblance  of 
the  organization  they  had  enjoyed  prior  to  1837.  When  it  was  proposed 
to  create  in  New  York  a  city  industrial  congress,  after  the  model  of  the 
national  congress  of  the  land  reformers,  there  were  a  number  of  locals 
that  received  the  call  with  hopes  of  a  city  federation.  Some  fifty  groups 
took  part  in  the  meeting  and  adopted  a  preamble  resolving  to  use  "all 
available  means  to  promote  their  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  eleva- 
tion." 3  But  the  control  was  in  the  hands  of  reformers  of  all  shades  of 
opinion;  many  unions,  distrustful  from  the  first,  had  not  joined,  and 
when  it  became  evident  that  a  general  trades'  union  was  not  to  result, 
most  of  the  others  withdrew  in  disgust.  The  workers  were  unwilling  to 
forsake  the  tried  and  intelligible  method  of  the  strike  for  vaster 
schemes. 


1  True  Workingman,  Jan.  24,  1846. 
*  New  York  Tribune,  July  3,  1850. 
3  Ibid.,  July  3,  1850. 


n6  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

In  the  brief  period  of  prosperity  before  the  depression  of  1855,  which 
culminated  in  the  panic  of  1857,  set  in,  the  craftsmen  who  had  so  dis- 
trusted the  plans  of  the  reformers  adhered  religiously  to  their  "pure  and 
simple"  business  unionism;  strikes,  not  of  the  trade  but  of  the  single 
shop,  efforts  at  collective  bargaining,  and  the  establishment  of  minimum 
wages  with  employers  were  its  distinguishing  features.  In  1853  and 
1854,  when  the  movement  was  at  its  height,  there  occurred  some  400 
strikes.  The  older  societies  like  the  printers  and  the  cordwainers,  re- 
organized upon  a  strictly  " protective"  basis.  But  all  in  all  the  unionism 
of  the  early  fifties  was  but  a  belated  revival  of  the  earlier  mechanics' 
movement:  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  skilled  artisans,  it  was  local,  and 
it  pursued  the  same  policies  that  had  proved  successful  in  1835  and 
1836,  and  had  persisted  under  the  surface  ever  since.  Even  the  at- 
tempts at  nationalization,  in  emulation  of  the  printers,  who  had  formed 
a  national  union  in  1852,  are  carried  on  by  the  local  mechanics;  they 
are  neither  the  results  of  the  advancing  industrial  revolution  nor  are 
they  the  unions  which  are  later  to  take  the  initiative. 

The  very  first  real  national  unions  of  the  new  era  were  in  the  iron 
trades,  symbolic  of  the  industrial  age;  in  1859  were  organized  the  Molders 
International  Union  and  the  National  Union  of  Mechanics  and  Black- 
smiths. Both  originated,  in  characteristic  union  fashion,  as  efforts  of 
self-protection  against  the  attempts  of  the  employers  to  force  down 
wages  and  standards.  William  H.  Sylvis,  the  great  leader  of  the  molders, 
tells  how  the  competition  induced  by  the  consolidation  of  the  east  and 
west  trunk  lines  in  the  fifties  forced  the  employers  in  Pennsylvania  to 
make  determined  efforts.  They  reduced  their  prices  and  their  margin 
of  profits  to  the  minimum;  they  then  started  reducing  wages,  required 
the  men  to  furnish  their  own  tools,  introduced  division  of  labor  and 
boys  as  "  helpers. "  "  Thus  this  system  went  on  until  it  became  custom- 
ary for  each  man  to  have  one  to  five  boys;  and  .  .  .  prices  became  so 
low  that  men  were  obliged  to  increase  the  hours  of  labor,  and  work  much 
harder;  and  then  could  scarcely  obtain  the  plainest  necessaries  of  life. J>1 
Similar  conditions  obtained  among  the  machinists.  "  Unfair  dealing 
on  the  part  of  the  employers  had  long  been  a  grievance  with  the  men. 
The  baneful  system  of  paying  in  orders  was  common.  The  taking  on 
of  as  many  apprentices  as  could  possibly  be  worked  was  considered  the  in- 
dubitable right  of  every  employer.  ...  As  the  business  came  to  be  more 
fully  developed,  it  was  found  that  more  capital  must  be  employed  and 
the  authority  and  supervision  of  the  owner  or  owners  must  be  delegated 
1  Fincher's  Trades'  Review,  July  18,  1863. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          117 

to  superintendents  and  under-foreman.  In  this  manner  men  and  mas- 
ters became  estranged  and  the  gulf  could  only  be  bridged  by  a  strike, 
when,  perhaps,  the  representatives  of  the  workingmen  might  be  admitted 
to  the  office  and  allowed  to  state  their  case.  It  was  to  resist  this  com- 
bination of  capital,  which  had  so  changed  the  character  of  the  employers, 
that  led  to  the  formation  of  the  union. " 

In  both  these  cases  it  is  the  industrial  revolution  that  through  chang- 
ing conditions  has  made  organization  in  self -protection  inevitable; 
1859  was  not  a  year  of  prosperity  and  good  prices;  the  workers  demanded 
a  livelihood,  not  an  increased  standard.  It  was  a  spontaneous  protest 
that  effected  national  organization,  and  neither  a  vision  of  social  im- 
provement nor  a  far-sighted  attempt  to  improve  status.  Hence  the 
aims  which  it  set  itself  were  purely  protective,  that  fundamental  strain 
of  self-interest  dominating  the  workers '  minds.  In  the  next  decade  the 
other  strain  came  to  the  front  again  with  success.  Powderly,  looking 
back  from  1889,  said:  "The  organization  of  labor  means  far  more  in 
1889  than  it  even  shadowed  in  1859;  then  the  supplication  was:  'Give 
us  an  advance  in  wages  and  shorter  hours  of  toil,  and  we  will  be  con- 
tent with  our  stay  on  earth. '  Today  the  demand  is:  '  Give  us  the  earth 
and  all  that  it  can  produce,  for  to  no  man,  or  set  of  men,  belongs  the 
right  to  monopolize  it  or  its  products. "  2  Elsewhere  he  states  that  de- 
spite the  wider  ideas  of  their  leaders,  the  men  at  this  time  were  interested 
in  but  two  things,  wages  and  the  regulation  of  the  number  of  the  ap- 
prentices. 3  These  were  the  immediate  problems;  the  workers  were 
still  suspicious  of  the  extravagant  theories  of  the  forties. 

The  machinists  thus  stated  their  aims:  "  Whereas,  in  the  present 
organization  of  society,  capital  and  labor  being,  as  a  matter  of  necessity, 
united  in  all  kinds  of  productive  industry  (and,  as  is  generally  the  case, 
represented  by  differing  parties),  it  has  come  to  pass:  That,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  smallness  of  the  number  representing  capital,  their  com- 
parative independence  and  power,  their  ample  leisure  to  study  their 
own  interests,  their  prompt  cooperation,  together  with  aid  of  legislation, 
and  last,  but  not  least,  the  culpable  negligence  of  the  working  classes 
themselves;  that  notwithstanding  their  joint  production  is  amply  suffi- 
cient to  furnish  both  parties  the  necessaries,  comforts,  and  luxuries  of 
life,  yet  the  fact  is  indisputable  that  while  the  former  enjoy  more  than 
their  share,  the  latter  are  correspondingly  depressed  ..."  resolved, 

1  Machinists'  and  Blacksmiths'  International  Journal,  Feb.  and  March,  1872. 

2  Powderly,  Thirty  Years  of  Labor,  5. 

3  Ibid.,  42. 


n8  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

that  we  hereby  form  our  union.1  "And  we  hereby  proclaim  to  the 
world,  that  so  far  from  encouraging  a  spirit  of  hostility  to  employers, 
all  properly  organized  unions  recognize  an  identity  of  interests  between 
employer  and  employee,  and  we  give  no  countenance  or  support  to  any 
project  or  enterprise  that  will  interfere  with  the  promotion  of  perfect 
harmony  between  them."  Sylvis  expressed  the  same  ideas  at  greater 
length  in  a  speech  adopted  as  the  preamble  of  the  Holders  Union:  "In 
all  countries  and  at  all  times  capital  has  been  used  by  those  possessing 
it  to  monopolize  particular  branches  of  business,  until  the  vast  and 
varied  industrial  pursuits  of  the  world  have  been  brought  under  the 
immediate  control  of  a  comparatively  small  portion  of  mankind.  Al- 
though an  unequal  distribution  of  the  world's  wealth,  it  is  perhaps 
necessary  that  it  should  be  so.  To  attain  to  the  highest  degree  of  suc- 
cess in  any  undertaking,  it  is  necessary  to  have  the  most  perfect  and 
systematic  arrangement  possible;  to  acquire  such  a  system,  it  requires 
the  management  of  a  business  to  be  placed  as  nearly  as  practicable 
under  the  control  of  one  mind;  thus  concentration  of  wealth  and  business 
tact  conduces  to  the  most  perfect  working  of  the  vast  machinery  of  the 
world.  .  .  ."  Capitalism  is  necessary;  only  its  greed  is  bad.  "There 
is,  perhaps,  no  other  organization  of  society  so  well  calculated  to  benefit 
the  laborer  and  advance  the  moral  and  social  condition  of  the  mechanic 
of  this  country,  if  those  possessed  of  wealth  were  all  actuated  by  those 
pure  and  philanthropic  principles  necessary  to  the  happiness  of  all;  but, 
alas!  for  the  poor  of  humanity,  such  is  not  the  case.  .  .  .  What  position 
are  we,  the  mechanics  of  America,  to  hold  in  Society?  Are  we  to  receive 
an  equivalent  for  our  labor  sufficient  to  maintain  us  in  comparative  in- 
dependence and  respectability,  to  procure  the  means  with  which  to 
educate  our  children  and  qualify  them  to  play  their  part  in  the  world's 
drama;  or  must  we  be  forced  to  bow  the  suppliant  knee  to  wealth,  and 
earn  by  unprofitable  toil  a  life  too  void  of  solace  to  confirm  the  very 
chains  that  bind  us  to  our  doom?  .  .  .  There  is  not,  there  cannot  be,  any 
good  reason  why  they  should  not  pay  us  a  fair  price  for  our  labor.  If 
the  profits  of  their  business  are  not  sufficient  to  remunerate  them 
for  the  trouble  of  doing  business,  let  the  consumer  make  up  the 
balance."2 

There  is  evident  here  a  wistful  glance  backward  at  the  agricultural 
equality,  and  a  very  reluctant  acceptance  of  the  new  order.  There 
must  be  rich  men;  but  let  the  masses  at  least  preserve  their  old  status. 

^owderly,  Thirty  Years  of  Labor,  35. 
2  Ibid.,  37-40. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          119 

If  men  are  to  gain  wealth  by  the  new  order,  they  can  divide  that  wealth 
among  the  workers.  Labor  can  have  at  least  a  minor  share  in  the  proc- 
ess. It  is  the  voice  of  those  temporarily  beaten  and  overwhelmed  by 
the  strangeness  of  the  transformation. 

Soon,  however,  jthe  Civil  War  prosperity  overtook  the  country;  prices 
rose  and  wages  with  them.  Men  had  but  to  ask  to  be  granted.  In  the 
fall  of  1862  many  new  locals  were  formed;  from  December,  1863,  to- 
December  of  the  next  year  the  number  rose  from  79  to  270.  At  the 
same  time  there  reappeared  the  older  trades'  assemblies  of  the  late 
thirties;  beginning  with  Rochester,  in  March,  1863,  they  had  by  the 
close  of  the  war  spread  to  every  important  city,  and  they  devoted  their 
time  to  organization  and  agitation,  to  boycotts  and  publicity  work, 
but  not  to  aiding  strikes  directly.  The  unit  was  still,  despite  national 
organization  in  some  trades,  the  city;  when  a  central  national  body  was 
to  be  formed  there  was  a  contest  beteween  the  city  assemblies  and  the 
growing  national  unions  for  its  control.  The  employers,  too,  were  busy 
organizing  at  this  time,  though  as  yet  there  were  no  collective  agreements 
between  them  and  the  unions. 

In  1864  the  Louisville  Trades'  Assembly  summoned  a  national  trades' 
assembly  to  combat  these  employers'  organizations.  With  a  personal-- 
izing  tendency  comparable  to  the  masters'  hatred  of  "agitators"  the 
convention  accused  the  capitalists  of  banding  together  "  for  the  express 
purpose  of  crushing  out  our  manhood"  and  of  assuming  "to  arrogate 
to  itself  the  right  to  own  and  control  labor. "  1  and  formed  the  Interna- 
tional Industrial  Assembly  of  North  America  to  foil  these  attempts. 
They  demanded  an  equal  share  of  the  wealth  they  created,  favored  con- 
ciliation and  trade  agreements  rather  than  strikes,  but  provided  for  a 
generous  strike  fund.  The  assembly  failed  through  lack  of  interest  from 
the  trades'  assemblies  on  which  it  was  based  and  through  the  hostility 
of  the  national  unions,  which  preferred  another  individual  unit  of  or- 
ganization; but  it  illustrated  the  growing  success  of  the  unions.  Mean- 
while the  number  and  strength  of  the  national  bodies  was  rapidly  in- 
creasing; in  addition  to  the  molders,  the  machinists,  and  the  printers, 
there  were  formed  in  the  sixties  strong  organizations  of  locomotive 
engineers,  cigar-makers,  coopers,  shoe-makers,  and  iron  puddlers. 

Before  considering  the  successive  attempts  made  to  unite  all  these 

unions  on  differing  bases  of  aim  and  of  organization,  and  the  struggle  for 

dominance  between  the  two  persistent  strains,  let  us  stop  to  examine 

the  general  theories  back  of  all  this  labor  activity.    The  movement  had 

1  Pinchers'  Trades'  Review,  Oct.  15,  1864. 


I2O  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

by  this  time  reached  a  position  of  comparative  success;  no  longer  a  mere 
spontaneous  protest  against  degradation,  it  could  afford  the  luxury  of 
a  somewhat  reflective  and  critical  examination  of  its  methods  and  aims. 
It  was  ready  and  eager  to  consider  the  social  implications  of  its  activi- 
ties, with  a  view  to  extending  them  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  a  living 
wage.  Hitherto  the  social  and  political  philosophy  of  the  workers  had 
been  merely  an  application  and  adaptation  of  the  natural  rights  theory 
of  the  Revolution;  now  their  need  was  a  philosophy  that  would  furnish 
a  social  justification  for  labor  activities  in  terms  of  the  welfare  of  the 
community  as  a  whole.  Nor  was  it  wholly  a  case  of  justification  after 
the  fact;  nowhere  is  the  presence  of  the  second  or  social  strain  in  Ameri- 
can labor  so  noticeable  as  hi  the  continued  dissatisfaction  expressed 
with  the  pure  and  simple  unionism  of  private  gain  in  economic  competi- 
tion, and  the  groping  after  an  idealism  to  give  a  social  significance  to 
the  workers'  struggles.  This  philosophy  was  supplied  in  the  nick  of 
time  by  Ira  Steward  and  his  eight-hour  theory,  the  dominant  intellectual 
force  in  American  labor  down  to  the  eve  of  the  Great  War.  As  John 
R.  Commons  says,  ''Steward's  philosophy  is  what  may  be  called  the 
first  philosophy  springing  from  the  American  labor  movement.  Stew- 
ard's contribution,  in  giving  justification  and  shape  to  American  labor's 
most  characteristic  demand,  can  not  be  overestimated  and  has  not  been 
sufficiently  recognized. "  1  The  factor  that  causecjfrthe  wide  acceptance 
of  this  theory  is  the  remarkable  manner  in  which  he  combined  the  two 
characteristic  strains,  and  formulated  a  program  which  while  satisfy- 
ing completely  all  those  desires  for  individual  improvement  appealed 
also  to  the  social  interests  of  the  workers  with  the  assurance  that 
thus,  and  thus  alone,  was  the  true  welfare  of  society  as  a  whole  to  be 
forwarded.  All  the  more  remarkable  is  it  that  in  that  age  of  abstract 
economic  theory  Steward  was  able  to  appreciate  the  importance  of 
psychological  considerations;  it  gives  his  theory  a  strikingly  modern 
note.  His  acceptance  of  the  wage-system,  and  even  more  the  adoption 
of  his  ideas  as  the  official  philosophy  of  the  A.  F.  L.  have  told  against 
him  for  the  modern  worker,  however. 

The  theory  back  of  the  revival  of  unionism  in  the  fifties  had  been 
that  which  persistently  reappears  when  the  fear  of  unemployment  is 
very  strong.  It  is  the  theory  the  plumber  goes  on  when  he  spends  two 
hours  upon  a  job  requiring  only  one,  or  when  he  mends  a  leak  in  such  a 
way  that  it  will  recur  again  in  a  short  time.  To  economists  it  is  known 
as  the  lump  of  labor  theory;  to  workers,  as  the  theory  of  "making 

1  Doc.  Hist.,  IX,  24. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          121 


work."  It  assumes  that  there  is  a  certain  definite  and  fixed  amount 
of  employment  to  be  had  which  must  in  the  workers'  interest  be  made 
to  last  as  long  as  possible  and  go  around  amongst  as  many  as  possible. 
It  is  well  expressed  in  the  resolution  of  a  ten-hour  convention  held  in 
Boston  in  1852:  "Wages  are  governed  by  the  great  law  of  trade — the 
law  of  supply  and  demand.  .  .  .  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  the  pro- 
ductions of  labor  demanded  by  the  wants  of  the  community,  and  there 
are  a  certain  number  of  laborers  ready  for  employment  to  supply  the 
demand.  As  the  demand  or  the  supply  of  laborers  is  in  excess,  wages 
will  rise  or  fall.  ...  A  reduction  of  hours  would  be  equivalent  to  di- 
minishing the  supply  of  labor."  *  This  would  at  least  keep  wages  up  in 
the  face  of  increasing  immigration;  if  restrictions  of  another  nature 
could  be  placed  on  the  supply  of  labor,  wages  might  even  rise.  Hence 
together  with  demands  for  shorter  hours  went  limitation  of  the  number 
of  apprentices,  efforts  at  keeping  women  and  negroes  from  competing 
with  the  unionists,  and  attempts  at  restricting  immigration.  Such  a 
policy  worked  to  the  immediate  advantage  of  the  unionists,  but  it  ob- 
viously appeared  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  all  others  concerned. 
Just  so  soon  as  they  felt  they  were  no  longer  fighting  for  their  very  ex- 
istence this  troubled  the  consciences  of  the  workers.  And  it  was  at- 
tacked with  considerable  success  by  the  economists  upon  purely  eco- 
nomic grounds. 

Hence  it  was  that  the  machinists,  for  instance,  who  in  their  first  con- 
vention had  resolved  on  shorter  hours  for  the  purpose  of  "  making 
work,"  adopted  Steward's  justification  for  that  policy  in  1863  with 
great  enthusiasm.  For  Steward  proclaimed  that  reducing  the  number 
of  hours  not  only  benefited  the  men  concerned;  it  also  worked  to  the 
advantage  both  of  the  employer  and  of  the  community  as  a  whole. 
And  he  inextricably  knitted  the  individual  and  the  social  motives  by 
pointing  out  that  no  workers  could  hope  to  improve  their  own  condi- 
tion until  they  also  improved  that  of  then-  poorest  fellow-workers.  One 
of  the  immediate  effects  of  Stewardism  was  to  transform  the  selfish  /, 
trade-conscious  unionism  of  the  fifties  into  the  class-conscious  and  bar- 
rier-breaking movement  of  the  sixties. 

Instead  of  making  wages  depend  upon  the  supply,  or  capital,  Stew- 
ard emphasized  the  side  of  demand.  It  is  the  standard  of  living  of  the 
worker  that  dictates  his  wage,  his  wants  and  his  desires,  not  any  wage- 
fund.  So  long  as  this  is  low,  wages  will  be  low  for  all  laborers.  The 
problem  is,  how  to  raise  this  standard  for  the  poorer  workers.  The  an- 

1  Doc.  Hist.,  VIII,  131. 


122  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

swer  is  through  granting  them  leisure  to  develop  new  wants;  through 
shorter  hours.    Hence  a  compulsory  eight-hour  day. 

1  'You  are  receiving,"  says  Steward,  "your  scanty  pay  precisely  be- 
cause you  work  so  many  hours  a  day.    My  point  now  is  to  show  why 
this  is  true,  and  why  reducing  the  hours  for  the  masses  will  eventually 
increase  their  wages.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  as  a  rule,  that  men  who  labor 
excessively  are  robbed  of  all  ambition  to  ask  for  anything  more  than 
will  satisfy  their  bodily  necessities,  while  those  who  labor  moderately 
have  time  to  cultivate  tastes  and  create  wants  in  addition  to  mere  phys- 
ical comforts.    How  can  men  be  stimulated  to  demand  higher  wages 
when  they  have  little  or  no  time  or  strength  to  use  the  advantages  which 
higher  wages  can  buy  or  procure?"       As  George  Gunton,  Steward's 
foremost  disciple,  puts  it,  "Other  things  being  the  same,  the  cost  of 
(the  worker's)  living  will  be  determined  by  the  number  of  his  habitual 
wants.    Thus  the  cost  of  producing  labor  is  ultimately  determined  by 
the  socially  accepted  standard  of  living;  that  is  to  say,  the  state  of  ma- 
terial comfort  and  social  refinement  which  is  customary  in,  and  thus  is 
determined  by,  the  social  status  of  the  class  to  which  he  belongs,  and 
below  which  he  cannot  permanently  go  without  being  put  to  social  dis- 
advantages." 2    The  problem,  then,  is  "How  can  the  social  opportu- 
nities of  the  masses  be  enlarged?" 

"My  theory,"  answered  Steward,  "is,  first,  that  more  leisure  will 
create  motives  and  temptations  for  the  common  people  to  ask  for  more 
wages.  Secondly,  that  where  all  ask  for  more  wages  there  will  be  no 
motive  for  refusing,  since  employers  will  all  fare  alike.  Thirdly,  that 
where  all  demand  more  wages  the  demand  can  not  be  resisted.  Fourthly, 
that  resistance  would  amount  to  the  folly  of  a  'strike'  by  employers 
themselves  against  the  strongest  power  in  the  world,  viz.,  the 
habits,  customs,  and  opinions  of  the  masses.  Fifthly,  that  the  change 
in  the  habits  and  opinions  of  the  people  through  more  leisure  will  be 
too  gradual  to  disturb  and  jar  the  commercial  enterprise  of  capital. 
Sixthly,  that  the  increase  in  wages  will  fall  upon  the  wastes  of  society, 
in  its  crimes,  idleness,  fashions,  and  monopolies  as  well  as  the  more  le- 
gitimate profits  of  capital,  in  the  production  and  distribution  of 
wealth.  Seventhly,  in  the  mechanical  fact,  that  the  cost  of  making 
an  article  depends  almost  entirely  upon  the  number  manufactured, 
is  a  practical  increase  in  wages,  by  tempting  the  workers  through 
their  new  leisure  to  unite  in  buying  luxuries  now  confined  to 

1 A  Reduction  of  hours  an  increase  of  wages,  Steward,  pamphlet,  1865. 

2  Gunton,  The  Economic  and  Social  Importance  of  the  Eight-Hour  Movement,  1889. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          123 

the  wealthy,  and  thus  more  costly  because  bought  only  by  the 
wealthy."  1 

Thus  it  is  to  the  interest  of  the  employer  and  the  public  to  unite  in 
reducing  the  number  of  hours  for  the  worker.  "The  increase  in  wages 
does  not  mean  an  increase  in  the  price  of  the  article  produced,  as  do  the 
'strike'  for  higher  wages  when  successful."  As  Gunton  puts  it,  "Ec- 
onomic production  absolutely  depends  upon  social  consumption,  and 
the  success  of  the  employing  class  depends  upon  the  extent  of  the  con- 
suming class.  .  .  .  Capital  can  yield  increasing  returns,  i.  e.,  become 
a  cheaper  productive  force  than  labor— only  when  it  can  produce  on  an 
extensive  scale.  .  .  .  Since  the  laboring  classes  constitute  seven  or 
eight-tenths  of  the  consumers,  it  is  upon  increasing  their  consumption 
— by  means  of  raising  the  social  life  and  wages  of  the  laborer — that  the 
market  for  capitalistic  productions  finally  depends.  ...  It  will  thus 
be  seen  that  the  economic  interests  of  the  employing  classes  are  not  op- 
posed to,  but  are  bound  up  with  and  dependent  upon  the  social  well- 
being  of  the  laborer;  that  the  success  of  the  modern  factory  depends 
upon  the  comforts  of  the  average  laborer's  home,  and  that  the  profitable 
employment  of  capital  can  only  be  promoted  as  the  general  rate  of  wages 
is  advanced."  2 

In  fact,  ultimately  "wages  will  continue  to  increase  till  the  capitalist 
and  the  laborer  are  one.  .  .  .  The  capitalist,  as  we  now  understand  him, 
is  to  pass  away  with  the  kings  and  royalties  of  the  past.  In  America 
every  man  is  king  in  theory,  and  will  be  in  practke  eventually  and  in  the 
good  time  coming  every  man  will  be  a  capitalist.  The  capitalist  of  today, 
however,  is  as  necessary  as  was  the  king  once,  to  preserve  order.  Nothing 
but  a  higher  standard  of  popular  intelligence  can  supersede  the  necessity 
of  the  one  man  power."  But  in  the  meanwhile  Steward  offers  the  tradi- 
tional American  ideal.  "Without  attempting  to  settle  definitely  how 
much  common  labor  is  worth, — for  it  is  a  broad  question, — I  will  make 
the  claim  that  no  man's  compensation  should  be  so  low  that  it  will  not 
secure  for  himself  and  family  a  comfortable  home — education  for  his 
children,  and  all  of  the  influence  to  which  he  is  entitled  by  his  capacity, 
virtue,  and  industry."  3 

But  first  and  foremost  the  worker  must  remember  that  his  wage  de- 
pends upon  the  wage  of  his  poorest  fellow.  The  only  path  to  self-help  is 
through  helping  others.  "Think  of  it,  you  mechanics,  who  affect  social 

1  Steward,  op.  cit. 
1  Gunton,  op.  cit. 
8  Steward,  Pamphlet,  cited. 


124  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

distinctions  between  the  uncultivated  laborer  and  yourself;  on  election 
day  the  capitalist  and  the  common  laborer  unite  to  vote  you  down,  and 
the  rest  of  the  year  you  and  the  shrewder  capitalist  unite  and  keep  down 
and  away  from  you  the  'common,  unclean  laborer.'  ...  In  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth  there  is  a  king  fact  or  law  that  rules  all  others  and 
which  may  be  called  the  north  star  of  political  economy;  and  it  is  this: 
that  cheaper  ways  of  doing  things  will  always  succeed  against  dearer 
ways.  .  .  .  Human  muscular  force  must  be  made  dearest,  so  that  it  can 
be  driven  out  of  the  market  and  out  of  the  world.  ...  In  the  simple 
power  of  the  cheaper  over  the  dearer  is  contained  the  Divine  or  natural 
plan  for  making  the  selfishness  of  men  serve  each  other,  as  soon  as  the 
wealth  and  intelligence  of  the  more  advanced  part  of  them  have  given 
them  the  power  to  lift  up  the  rest  of  the  race.  When  selfishness  is  suffi- 
ciently enlightened,  it  discovers  that  its  own  personal  interests  can  not 
be  very  well  served  without  serving  others.  The  universal  power  of  the 
cheapest  makes  it  absolutely  impossible  for  any  part  of  the  human  race  to 
rise  very  much  higher  than  the  rest.  .  .  .  It  is  somewhat  troublesome  for 
the  highest  to  pause  in  their  pleasures  and  lift  up  the  lowest;  but  they  will 
be  rewarded  with  more  wealth  if  they  do,  and  be  punished  with  more 
poverty  if  they  don't."  1 

It  will  at  once  be  seen  that  this  philosophy  of  Steward's  is  far  more 
than  a  mere  theory  justifying  shorter  hours.  It  is  a  social  philosophy: 
it  lifts  labor  groups  out  of  their  comparatively  isolated  round  of  selfish 
strikes  and  trade  exclusiveness  and  places  them  in  closest  possible  relation 
to  the  wider  group  of  workers,  wherever  they  may  be,  of  employers,  and 
of  the  consuming  public  as  a  whole.  It  proclaims  .that  not  alone,  but  only 
in  a  group,  as  a  united  and  cooperating  body,  can  the  workers  hope  to 
improve  their  position  and  secure  their  desired  goal  of  an  assured  and 
relatively  equal  social  status.  It  thus  extended  to  a  broader  field  that 
fundamental  tenet  of  unionism,  that  in  union  there  is  strength,  that  some 
must  forego  immediate  gain  for  the  sake  of  the  greater  ultimate  gain  of  all. 

Hence  it  proved  as  successful  as  Marxianism  in  Europe  in  uniting  and 
solidifying  the  laboring  class.  For  Stewardism  is  essentially  a  gospel, 
a  missionary  philosophy;  its  only  hope  of  success  lies  in  awakening  the 
workers  everywhere  to  demand  a  higher  standard.  The  early  emphasis 
placed  on  an  eight-hour  day  imposed  by  legislation  soon  passed;  the 
eight-hour  day  itself  was  but  a  single  means  for  raising  that  standard  of 
living  upon  which  social  improvement  depended.  Hitherto  one  trade 
had  sought  to  organize  itself  to  increase  its  own  bargaining  power;  now 

1  Steward,  op.  cit.,  and  The  Power  of  the  Cheaper  over  the  Dearer,  Doc.  Hist.,  VIII. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          125 

it  was  clearly  seen  that  it  was  necessary  to  organize  all  trades,  even  the 
lowest,  before  any  could  rise  very  far.  Thus  it  was  that  both  of  the  great 
national  bodies,  the  Knights  of  Labor  and  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor,  assumed  as  their  most  important  task  the  organization  of  as  many 
trades  as  possible;  hence  it  was  that  the  K.  of  L.  was  particularly  inter- 
ested in  the  common  laborer,  as  that  "cheapest"  upon  which  the  price  of 
all  labor  depended. 

Moreover,  Stewardism  was  essentially  optimistic.  It  believed  that 
society  was  governed  by  a  great  "divine  law"  whereby  all  men  if  they 
resolved  to  help  each  other  would  ipso  facto  be  raising  themselves  to  the 
heights  of  prosperity.  There  was  no  limit  to  the  goods  to  be  achieved. 
The  higher  the  wants,  the  greater  the  wages,  the  larger  the  scale  of  pro- 
duction, the  cheaper  the  products;  all  in  increasing  ratio,  it  was  believed. 
To  start  the  ball  rolling  was  bound  to  be  hardest;  once  the  eight-hour  day 
prevailed,  it  would  be  easy  to  advance  further.  Steward  had,  indeed,  no 
logical  ground  for  stopping  at  eight  hours;  but  then  it  is  entirely  mis- 
construing the  force  and  the  effect  of  Steward's  philosophy  to  see  in  the 
emphasis  on  the  eight-hour  day,  or,  as  some  writers  have  done,  in  the 
legislative  means  to  secure  it,  its  most  important  aspect. 

Stewardism  was  not  revolutionary;  it  preserved  the  capitalistic  system 
of  production,  and  identified  the  interests  of  the  employer  with  those 
of  the  worker.  Most  of  the  preambles  to  the  constitutions  of  the  unions 
of  the  present  day,  drawn  up  during  the  period  when  Stewardism  was 
dominant,  contain  in  some  form  this  insistence  on  the  identity  of  interest 
of  the  two  parties,  an  insistence  which  seems  strange  to  many  contempo- 
rary unionists.  But  this  did  not  mean  what  the  modern  employer  means 
by  the  phrase,  that  the  real  interest  of  the  worker  is  for  the  employer  to 
make  as  large  profits  as  possible;  it  meant  that  the  controlling  interest 
was  that  of  labor,  not  that  of  capital.  Whatever  labor  wanted  was  really 
best  for  capital,  even  though  the  latter  was  generally  so  obtuse  as  to 
desire  some  other  end. 

Finally,  the  most  important  factor  in  Stewardism  for  the  present 
investigation  is  the  remarkable  way  in  which  it  succeeded  in  blending 
both  of  the  tendencies  that  motivate  American  labor,  the  desire  for 
individual  advantage  and  thes  desire  for  social  well-being.  The  workers 
must  pursue  the  policy  of  strikes  for  shorter  hours  and  higher  wages,  just 
as  they  had  done  before,  while  at  the  same  time  they  could  feel  that  they 
were  satisfying  their  impulse  to  advance  society  as  a  whole  which  had 
hitherto  proved  rather  disastrous  to  their  private  interests.  Or,  to  look 
at  the  other  side,  they  could  go  forth  to  aid  all  workers  through  organiza- 


J26  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

tion  and  the  institution  of  higher  standards  with  the  feeling  that  in  so 
doing  they  were  really  improving  their  own  position.  Moreover,  both 
types  of  men,  those  who  were  most  interested  in  social  as  well  as  those 
interested  entirely  in  private  interests,  could  unite  upon  a  common  pro- 
gram and  a  common  method.  It  is  doubtful  whether  a  social  philosophy 
better  calculated  to  appeal  to  the  American  labor  movement  in  the  stage 
in  which  it  then  was,  that  of  a  small  minority  that  could  hardly  hope  for 
any  direct  control  of  the  ends  of  social  action,  could  possibly  have  been 
devised:  for  it  succeeded  in  combining  those  two  forces  that  must  be 
combined  in  any  movement  that  hopes  to  achieve  success. 

The  practical  emphasis  placed  by  the  A.  F.  L.  on  Steward's  philosophy 
is  evidenced  in  the  prominence  in  its  literature  of  eight-hour  doctrines. 
George  Gunton,  Steward's  chief  follower,  author  of  Wealth  and  Progress, 
The  Economic  Philosophy  of  the  Eight-Hour  Movement,  wrote  in  1889  a 
pamphlet  widely  circulated  as  The  Economic  and  Social  Importance  of 
the  Eighth-Hour  Movement.  George  E.  MacNeill  in  1890  wrote  The 
Eight-Hour  Primer,  in  1893  the  pamphlet  The  Philosophy  of  the  Labor 
Movement.  Lemuel  Danryid  produced  The  History  and  Philosophy  of 
the  Eight-Hour  Movement  in  1890.  During  the  nineties  the  eight-hour 
movement  was  especially  emphasized,  and  the  fundamentals  of  Steward- 
ism  were  so  impressed  into  the  workers'  minds  that  they  have  largely 
continued  to  operate  until  the  present  day.  Today  the  publications  of 
the  Federation  bear  the  legend,  "8  hours  for  work,  8  hours  for  rest,  8 
hours  for  what  we  will,"  and  the  jingle  composed  by  Steward's  wife, 
"Whether  you  work  by  the  piece  or  work  by  the  day,  decreasing  the 
hours  increases  the  pay."  And  even  though  the  eight-hour  day  be  now 
largely  achieved,  and  the  direct  influence  of  Steward's  gospel  have  sub- 
sided, the  indirect  and  broader  effects  of  it  have  been  incalculably 
widespread. 

It  was  just  as  this  philosophy  was  gaining  wide  popularity  that  the 
labor  movement  took  on  its  characteristic  modern  form,  and  became 
national  in  scope.  We  have  seen  how  the  International  Industrial 
Assembly,  founded  on  the  local  trades'  assemblies,  failed  to  materialize  in 
1864.  Two  years  later  another  congress  met  at  Baltimore,  this  time 
under  the  auspices  of  the  national  unions,  and  formed  a  National  Labor 
Union.  Powderly  tells  us  that  the  leaders  wished  to  engage  in  political 
activity,  but  realized  that  the  men  would  not  have  it;  they  were  concerned 
solely  with  the  eight-hour  question,  then  at  the  height  of  its  agitation.1 
They  deprecated  strikes,  seeking  the  "mutual  confidence"  of  the  einploy- 

1  Powderly,  op.  tit.,  66. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          127 

ers,  provided  for  the  expenses  of  the  Union,  sought  to  further  organiza- 
tion, and  to  reduce  the  number  of  the  " botch  apprentices."  Next  year 
they  adopted  a  platform,  and  they  held  conventions  until  1870. 

At  first  the  eight-hour  day  was  paramount  in  the  convention;  it  seems 
to  have  remained  so  with  the  members,  for  as  the  Union  turned  to  political 
action  it  lost  the  interest  and  support  of  its  members.  In  1866, 1867,  and 
again  in  1870,  the  convention  approved  cooperation,  but  without  en- 
thusiasm. The  significant  note  in  the  conventions  was  the  solidarity  felt 
with  the  whole  laboring  class,  influenced  already  by  Steward's  philosophy. 
In  an  address  in  1867  A.  C.  Cameron  of  Chicago  said,  "What  is  wanted, 
then,  is  for  every  union  to  help  inculcate  the  grand  and  ennobling  idea 
that  the  interests  of  labor  are  one;  that  there  should  be  no  distinctions  of 
race  or  nationality,  no  classifications  of  Jew  or  Gentile,  Christian  or 
infidel — that  that  which  separates  mankind  into  two  great  classes,  the 
class  that  labors  and  the  class  that  lives  by  others'  labor.  ...  If  these 
principles  be  true,  we  must  seek  the  cooperation  of  the  African  race  in 
America."  l  The  Union  accordingly  not  only  welcomed  colored  and 
foreign  workers;  it  extended  sympathy  to  "the  sewing  women  and 
daughters  of  toil  of  the  United  States,"  advocating  "the  same  rate  of 
wages  for  equal  work  for  women,"  and  resolving  "to  do  all  in  our  power 
to  open  many  of  the  closed  avenues  of  industry  to  women,  and  welcome 
her  entering  into  just  competition  with  men  in  the  industrial  race  of 
life."  2  There  was  even  a  resolution  inviting  the  fanners  to  join,  and  the 
"common  and  unskilled  labor  to  cooperate  in  our  efforts  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  the  producing  classes."  3  This  broadly  class-conscious 
policy  included  even  adherence  to  the  recently  organized  International 
Workingmen's  Society  of  Marx;  it  apparently  broke  down  only  where 
immigration  and  coolie  labor  were  concerned. 

The  old  American  tradition  was  still  strong.  In  the  platform  of  1867 
it  was  stated:  "We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are 
created  equal,  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain 
inalienable  rights,  that  among  these  are  lif e,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness;  that  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among 
men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed;  that 
there  are  but  two  forms  of  government,  the  autocratic  and  the  dem- 
ocratic .  .  .  that  the  design  of  the  founders  of  the  republic  was  to 
institute  a  government  upon  the  principle  of  absolute  inherent  sover- 

1  Cameron,  Address  of  the  Nat.  Labor  Congress  to  the  Workingmen  of  the  U.  S.  1867. 

2  Workingman's  Advocate,  Aug.  27,  1870. 
8  Ibid. 


128  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

eignty  in  the  people,  and  that  would  give  to  each  citizen  the  largest 
political  and  religious  liberty  compatible  with  the  good  order  of  society, 
and  secure  to  each  the  right  to  enjoy  the  fruit  of  his  labor  and  talents, 
that  when  laws  are  enacted  destructive  of  these  ends  they  are  without 
moral  binding  force,  and  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  a  people  to  alter 
and  amend  or  abolish  them,  and  institute  such  others,  founding  them 
upon  the  principles  of  equity,  as  to  them  may  seem  most  likely  to  effect 
their  prosperity  and  happiness.  .  .  .  We  further  hold  that  all  property 
or  wealth  is  the  product  of  physical  or  intellectual  labor  employed  in 
productive  industry,  and  in  the  distribution  of  the  products  of  labor. 
That  laborers  ought  of  right,  and  would  under  a  just  monetary  system, 
receive  or  retain  the  larger  proportion  of  their  productions:  that  the 
wrongs,  oppressions,  and  destitutions  which  laborers  are  suffering  in 
most  departments  of  legitimate  enterprise  and  useful  occupations,  do 
not  result  from  insufficiency  of  production  but  from  the  unfair  distribu- 
tion of  the  products  of  labor  between  non-producing  capital  and  labor." 
They  accordingly  advocated  banking  reform  hi  the  spirit  of  the  early 
or  Eastern  greenbackism;  and  other  reforms,  such  as  education  and 
the  ever-present  land  problem. 

But  all  these  questions  stirred  the  workers  themselves  but  slightly. 
The  leaders'  persistence  in  running  into  politics  finally  drove  them  away. 
In  1866,  after  much  discussion  and  opposition,  a  resolution  for  political 
action  had  been  forced  through:  "Whereas  the  history  and  legislation 
of  the  past  has  demonstrated  the  fact  that  no  confidence  whatever  can 
be  placed  in  the  pledges  or  professions  of  the  representatives  of  existing 
political  parties  so  far  as  the  interests  of  the  industrial  classes  are  con- 
cerned; therefore  be  it  resolved,  that  the  time  has  come  when  the  work- 
ingmen  of  the  United  States  should  cut  themselves  aloof  from  party 
ties  and  predilections,  and  organize  themselves  into  a  National  Labor 
Party,  the  object  of  which  shall  be  to  secure  the  enactment  of  a  law 
to  make  '  eight  hours '  a  legal  day's  work  by  the  National  Congress,  and 
the  several  state  legislatures,  and  the  election  of  men  pledged  to  sustain 
and  represent  the  interests  of  the  industrial  classes.  .  .  .  Where  a 
workingman  is  found  available  for  the  office,  the  preference  should  in- 
variably be  given  to  such  a  person."  2  Political  action  was  indeed  tried, 
for  the  eight-hour  day,  where  a  lobby  secured  a  law  from  Congress  in 
1868,  for  banking  reform,  and  for  other  objects,  with  little  success  or 
result  save  the  alienation  of  the  trade  unionists.  In  1871  the  Union 

1  Doc.  Hist.,  IX,  176. 

2  Workingman' s  Advocate,  Sept.  i,  1866. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          129 

dissolved  into  a  pure  political  party.  A  contemporary  comment  runs: 
"The  leaders  of  the  National  Labor  Union  have  learned  nothing  and 
it  is  to  be  feared  will  never  learn  to  understand  the  labor  question.  All 
the  great  trades  organizations  having  withdrawn  previously,  with  the 
single  exception  of  the  miners,  the  congress  can  hardly  be  called  a  work- 
ingman's  convention."  1  American  workingmen,  continues  the  ob- 
server, simply  will  not  go  into  politics.  This  is  confirmed  by  Powderly, 
who  claims  that  demagogues  and  cheap  politicians  had  repelled  the 
workers  from  the  National  Labor  Union.2 

The  history  of  the  National  Labor  Union  epitomizes  the  struggle  that 
took  place  in  the  labor  movement  from  1870  to  1890.  On  the  one  side 
were  those  who,  serving  their  apprenticeship  during  the  sixties  and 
seventies,  had  absorbed  much  of  the  spirit  of  that  time,  its  general 
faith  in  reform  by  political  action,  in  panaceas  and  in  cooperation;  this 
group  comprised  most  of  the  leaders  and  a  large  minority  of  the  workers, 
particularly  the  less  skilled.  On  the  other  side  were  the  great  mass  of 
the  workers,  still  predominantly  skilled  craftsmen,  for  whom  unionism 
meant  solely  more  pay  and  shorter  hours;  this  group  took  in  the  great 
national  unions  and  their  officials.  Yet  it  must  not  be  thought  that  the 
struggle  can  be  phrased  in  terms  of  the  social  against  the  individual 
tendency;  it  was  a  question  rather  of  method  than  principle  that  fur- 
nished the  source  of  contention.  The  great  strikes  of  1877,  and  even 
more  those  of  1885-6,  made  it  plain  to  the  workers  that  in  an  industrial- 
ized community  it  was  useless  for  them  to  rely  upon  either  public  or 
governmental  support,  or  upon  the  compassion  of  the  employers;  there- 
after the  methods  of  business  unionism  steadily  gained,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  self-centered  craft  unions  came  more  and  more  to  realize 
the  necessity  of  organizing  all  the  workers.vThe  eighties,  which  witnessed 
the  duel  of  the  Knights  and  the  Federation,  saw  a  struggle,  not  between 
a  humanitarian  and  a  strictly  selfish  form  of  organization,  but  rather 
between  an  organization  which  attempted  to  combine  a  philosophy  of 
cooperation,  education,  and  general  "reform,"  and  a  machinery  designed 
with  those  ends  in  view,  with  the  practical  aims  and  methods  of  business 
unionism,  and  an  organization  whose  philosophy  and  method  were  in 
close  harmony.  /In  the  Knights  the  bond  between  those  who  wanted 
more  pay  and  those  who  wanted  to  reform  society  was  entirely  artificial; 
to  accomplish  one  end  the  worker  had  to  forego  the  other,  and  the 
attempt  to  work  for  both  resulted  inevitably  in  failure.  In  the  Federa- 

1  Copybook  of  Central  Com.,  N.  A.  Fed.,  Doc.  Hist.,  IX,  360. 

2  Powderly,  op.  cit.,  90  ff. 


130  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

tion,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  natural  and  very  easy  progress 
from  strict  business  unionism  to  the  improvement  of  the  conditions  of 
the  whole  working  class;  it  was  necessary,  not  to  turn  about  and  face 
in  another  direction,  but  only  to  push  those  policies  a  little  further 
which  had  already  been  successfully  employed,  in  order  to  pass  from 
the  smaller  to  the  larger  goal.  In  the  Knights,  after  a  strike  for  a  living 
wage,  one  was  expected  to  engage  in  cooperation  and  in  politics;  in  the 
Federation,  one  had  only  to  go  on  and  strike  for  the  eight-hour  day. 
And  the  event  has  proved  how  even  those  benefits  which  the  Knights 
promised  and  which  the  Federation  ignored  if  it  did  not  oppose,  have 
come  about  with  the  gradual  development  and  unf  olding  of  the  principles 
lying  back  of  the  seemingly  reactionary  successful  organization?^ 

The  National  Labor  Union  had  traveled  further  and  further  away 
from  the  immediate  ends  of  the  workers  until  it  became  in  1871  a  po- 
litical party;  it  marked  the  height  of  that  second  or  crudely  optimistic 
phase  which  we  have  seen  recur  in  the  history  of  the  labor  movement. 
It  was  but  natural  that  the  reaction  should  come  upon  its  failure.  The 
menace  of  industrialism,  which  had  prompted  the  N.  L.  U.,  had  only 
increased  since  1866;  consequently  the  great  national  unions,  the  Molders, 
the  Machinists,  the  Coopers,  and  the  Printers,  united  in  1873  in  calling 
for  a  new  convention  that  they  might,  "profiting  by  our  dear  bought 
experience,  build  up  and  perfect  an  organization  such  as  was  contem- 
plated hi  Baltimore  in  1866."  1  The  new  congress  was  to  be  a  protection 
against  "the  rapid  and  alarming  concentration  of  capital,  placed  under 
the  control  of  a  few  men,"  which  was  bringing  about  "a  rapid  decrease 
of  our  power  as  Trade  Unions  in  comparison  with  that  of  Capital,"  : 
and  it  was  promised  that  it  would  not  degenerate  into  a  politician's 
paradise,  but  would  "remain  purely  an  Industrial  Association,  having 
for  its  sole  and  only  object  the  securing  to  the  producer  the  full  share 
of  all  he  produces."  In  the  platform  adopted  when  the  Congress  met 
hi  July  the  delegates  protested  against  the  "pauperization  and  degrada- 
tion of  the  masses,"  advocated  "a  system  which  will  insure  to  the  laborer 
the  fruits  of  his  toil,"  and  the  "organization,  consolidation,  and  coopera- 
tive effort  of  the  producing  masses,  as  a  stepping-stone  to  that  education 
that  will  in  the  future  lead  to  more  advanced  action."  3  The  congress 
shunned  those  questions  which  had  led  to  the  fall  of  the  National  Labor 
Union,  restricting  its  attention  to  purely  trade  union  matters  such  as 

1  Workingman's  Advocate,  May  3,  1873. 

2  Ibid. 

8  Powderly,  op.  cit.,  no. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          131 

apprenticeship,  prison  labor,  and  immigration.  Although  preferring 
arbitration  to  strikes,  it  made  a  provision,  through  financial  support 
and  effective  publicity,  for  a  strong  protective  policy  by  the  congress. 

What  would  have  been  the  fate  of  this  attempt  at  centralized  business 
unionism  had  not  the  panic  of  1873  occurred  two  months  later  it  is  im- 
possible to  conjecture.  The  Industrial  Congress  bravely  held  a  meeting 
the  next  year  at  Rochester,  and  changed  its  name  to  the  Industrial 
Brotherhood,  but  by  1875  there  were  few  delegates  left;  the  unions  were 
too  busy  fighting  their  foes  to  think  of  federation.  But  the  1874  meeting 
is  memorable  for  the  adoption  of  a  preamble  so  well  expressing  the 
spirit  of  the  leaders  of  labor  in  the  seventies  that  it  was  later  annexed 
by  the  Knights  of  Labor  as  their  own. 

"The  recent  alarming  development  and  aggression  of  aggregate  wealth, 
which,  unless  checked,  will  inevitably  lead  to  the  pauperization  and 
degradation  of  the  toiling  masses,  renders  it  imperative,  if  we  desire  to 
enjoy  the  blessings  of  life,  that  a  check  should  be  placed  upon  this  power 
and  upon  unjust  accumulation,  and  a  system  adopted  which  will  secure 
to  the  laborer  the  fruits  of  his  toil,  and  as  this  much  desired  object  can 
be  accomplished  only  by  the  thorough  unification  of  labor,  and  the 
united  efforts  of  those  who  obey  the  divine  injunction  that '  in  the  sweat 
of  thy  brow  shalt  thou  eat  thy  bread/  we  have  formed  the  Industrial 
Brotherhood  with  a  view  to  securing  the  organization,  direction,  by 
cooperative  effort,  of  the  power  of  the  industrial  classes;  and  we  submit 
to  the  world  the  objects  sought  to  be  accomplished  by  our  organization, 
calling  upon  all  who  believe  in  securing  '  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number'  to  aid  and  assist  us.  I.  To  bring  within  the  folds  of  organiza- 
tion every  department  of  productive  industry,  making  knowledge  the 
standpoint  for  action,  and  industrial  and  moral  worth,  not  wealth,  the 
true  standard  of  individual  and  national  greatness.  II.  To  secure  to  the 
toilers  a  proper  share  of  the  wealth  that  they  create;  more  of  the  leisure 
that  rightfully  belongs  to  them;  more  society  advantages;  more  of  the 
benefits,  privileges  and  emoluments  of  the  world,  in  a  word,  all  those 
rights  and  privileges  necessary  to  make  them  capable  of  enjoying,  ap- 
preciating, defending,  and  perpetuating  the  blessings  of  republican  in- 
stitutions." 1 

The  persistent  desire  to  retain  the  old  status  comes  out  in  the  ritual, 
where  it  is  stated  that  "the  great  aim  and  object  of  our  organization 
is  to  secure  for  the  industrial  classes  that  position  in  the  world  and  in 
society  to  which  they  are  entitled  as  the  producers  of  the  necessaries 

1  Powderly,  117. 


132  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

and  comforts  of  life;"  the  new  Stewardism  and  solidarity  of  labor,  in 
the  statement,  "The  conditions  of  one  part  of  our  class  can  not  be  im- 
proved permanently  unless  all  are  improved  together." 1  The  indomitable 
idealistic  spirit  had  crept  in  here,  and  as  a  result  the  trade  unionists, 
still  struggling  to  keep  their  heads  above  water,  were  far  from  enthu- 
siastic. In  summarizing  these  efforts  to  effect  a  national  body  Powderly 
interprets  for  us  the  general  feeling  of  the  average  unionist:  "It's  no 
use  in  having  so  many  organizations;  we  have  our  trade  union  and 
that  is  enough;  we  are  not  in  favor  of  allowing  our  affairs  to  be  discussed 
by  those  who  know  nothing  about  them,  and  we  will  not  associate  with 
the  common  every  day  laborers  in  any  organization  of  labor;  we  do  not 
object  to  meeting  with  them  elsewhere,  but  to  place  them  on  the  same 
level  with  ourselves  is  asking  too  much.  Pretty  soon  they  will  want  to 
take  our  places  at  the  bench,  and  it  is  time  to  nip  this  thing  hi  the  bud."  2 
The  significant  phrase  here  is  "at  the  bench;"  the  skilled  workers  were 
soon  to  see  the  common  laborer  taking  their  places,  not  at  the  bench, 
but  at  the  machine,  which  made  a  world  of  difference. 

The  hard  times  that  set  in  with  the  panic  of  1873  lasted  till  1879;  for 
the  labor  movement  it  was  a  tune  of  stress  and  great  searching  of  heart. 
Reduction  of  wages  everywhere,  if  not  actual  unemployment,  threat- 
ened to  engulf  the  old  national  unions;  the  employers  seized  the  wel- 
come opportunity  to  attempt  to  break  them  up  entirely  through 
lockouts,  blacklists,  and  other  persecution.  The  movement  was  prac- 
tically driven  underground;  this  was  the  great  period  of  secrecy  and 
hidden  rituals,  for  no  man  dared  openly  to  lead  in  union  activities  when 
it  meant  virtual  exclusion  from  employment  at  the  hands  of  every  mas- 
ter. Some  it  drove  to  predatory  acts,  to  murder  and  arson.  This  was 
the  time  when  the  Molly  Maguires,  who  speedily  for  the  general  pub- 
lic became  the  stock  type  of  unionist,  were  pursuing  their  course  of  crime 
in  the  Pennsylvania  coal  fields.  Others  it  forced  into  Marxianism  and 
revolutionary  socialism;  still  others  into  greenbackism  and  political  re- 
form. And  some  it  led  to  abandon  hope  of  securing  any  aid  from  the 
public  at  large,  either  in  a  general  organization  or  a  "people's  party, 
and  to  concentrate  then*  efforts  upon  building  up  a  strong  business 
unionism  upon  a  "practical,  non- theoretical  basis." 

It  was  in  these  years  that  the  Knights  of  Labor,  formed  by  Uriah 
Stephens  amongst  the  Philadelphia  garment  workers  hi  1868,  took  shape 
and  developed  its  "First  Principles."  There  were  many  locals  still  hi 

1  Powderly,  121. 
9  Ibid.,  127. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          133 

existence,  remnants  of  the  national  unions  of  1873,  and  locals  which  had 
never  formed  national  organizations;  out  of  this  material  Stephens  was 
able  to  build  up  local  and  district  assemblies,  although,  since  he  did  not 
propose  by  immediate  strikes  to  secure  higher  wages  the  members  often 
left  after  a  few  months  of  seemingly  ineffectual  activities.  The  orig- 
inal aims  of  the  Knights,  although  kept  secret,  were  very  moderate. 
"It  was  not  the  intention  to  create  an  antagonism  between  labor  and 
capital.  No  conflict  with  legitimate  enterprise  was  contemplated. "  1 
The  first  and  greatest  aim  was  education,  and  the  formation  of  "a 
healthy  public  opinion  on  the  subject  of  labor  (the  only  creator  of  val- 
ues or  capital)  and  the  justice  of  its  receiving  a  full,  just  share  of  the 
values  or  capital  it  has  created."  The  second  aim  was  legislation  har- 
monizing the  interests  of  capital  and  labor,  and  making  for  better  work- 
ing conditions.  In  accordance  with  these  broadly  social  aims,  the  form 
of  the  organization  was  the  antithesis  of  the  exclusive  craft  union. 
This  had  failed  to  recognize  "the  right  of  all  to  have  a  say  in  the  af- 
fairs of  one.  It  was  because  the  trade  union  failed  to  recognize  the 
rights  of  man,  and  looked  only  to  the  rights  of  the  trades  man,  that  the 
Knights  of  Labor  became  a  possibility."  2 

"Jhe  Knights  recognized  no  craft,  trade,  or  even  industrial  lines;  it 
included  all  men,  save  doctors,  bankers,  and  liquor-dealers,  and  was 
founded  upon  geographical,  not  functional,  lines.  It  thus  appealed  to 
the  unskilled  laborer,  and  just  as  surely  tended  to  repel  the  craftsman; 
in  this  early  period  the  only  successful  strike  it  could  hold  was  in  a 
locality  like  a  mining  camp  where  functional  and  geographical  distribu- 
tion coincided.  Otherwise  it  was  only  by  political  action,  or  by  a  gen- 
eral strike  of  all  workers,  that  it  could  hope  to  secure  results.  But  this 
was  to  the  founders  an  advantage,  for  they  scarcely  counted  the  strike 
as  one  of  their  weapons.X 

Stephens  declared  his  ideals  thus:  "There  should  be  a  greater  partic- 
ipation in  the  profits  of  labor  by  the  industrious  and  intelligent  laborer. 
In  the  present  arrangement  of  labor  and  capital  the  condition  of  the 
employee  is  simply  that  of  wage-slavery,  capital  dictating,  labor  sub- 
mitting; capital  superior,  labor  inferior.  This  is  an  artificial  and  man- 
created  condition,  not  God's  arrangement  and  order,  for  it  degrades 
man  and  ennobles  mere  pelf;  it  demeans  those  who  live  by  useful  labor 
.  .  .  What  is  the  remedy?  Cultivate  Friendship  among  the  great 
brotherhood  of  toil;  learn  to  respect  industry  in  the  person  of  the  intel- 

1  Powderly,  149. 

2  Ibid.,  156. 


134  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

ligent  worker;  unmake  the  shams  of  life  by  deference  to  the  humble  but 
useful  craftsman;  beget  concert  of  action  by  conciliation;  confidence 
by  just  and  upright  conduct  towards  each  other;  mutual  respect  by 
dignified  deportment,  and  wise  counsel  by  what  of  wisdom  or  ability 
God  in  his  wisdom  and  goodness  may  have  endowed  us  with .  .  .  The 
Knights  of  Labor  builds  upon  the  immutable  basis  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God,  and  the  logical  principle  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Man.  Its  work 
is  the  complete  emancipation  of  wealth-producers  from  the  thralldom 
of  wage-slavery.'  u 

These  were  the  broad,  idealistic,  if  not  visionary,  and  generally  so- 
cial principles  upon  which  the  Knights  set  forth  to  aid  the  workers  hi 
a  contemplated  campaign  of  education  and  legislative  reform,  culmin- 
ating in  a  political  party  as  the  various  local  assemblies  made  the  num- 
bers sufficient.  With  a  few  modifications  the"  first  principles"  of  the 
Knights,  like  the  preamble  they  borrowed  from  the  Industrial  Brother- 
hood, represented  the  spirit  of  the  late  sixties  when  the  first  successes 
of  the  new  unions  had  given  great  impetus  to  the  ever  ready  spirit  of 
social  idealism.  But  Powderly,  the  successor  of  Stephens  as  Grand 
Master  Workman,  was  destined  to  have  many  rude  shocks  from  the 
capitalists  and  the  public  whose  philanthropic  cooperation  he  sought, 
and  even  more  from  the  oppressed  workers,  who,  beholding  hi  his  Order, 
a  champion  in  armor  come  to  deliver  them,  flocked  to  his  banner  and 
eagerly  placed  powerful  weapons  hi  his  hands. 

The  first  rude  awakening  came  in  1877.  The  preceding  year  a  conven- 
tion of  socialists,  greenbackers,  and  Knights  had  been  held  in  Pittsburg 
to  attempt  the  federation  of  all  the  elements  in  the  labor  world,  trade 
unionists,  Marxian  socialists,  political  reformers  and  the  rest,  which  had 
naturally  come  to  naught  through  the  effort  of  embodying  these  con- 
tradictory aims  in  one  group.  In  the  summer  of  1877,  however,  the 
industrial  depression  reached  its  lowest  ebb;  wages,  already  reduced  to 
the  breaking  point,  were  lowered  one  step  further.  The  result  was  a 
spontaneous  outbreak  of  strikes,  starting  with  the  unskilled  railroad 
workers  and  spreading  like  wildfire  throughout  the  land,  culminating  in 
three  days  of  rioting  and  destruction  of  railroad  property  at  Pittsburgh; 
the  militia  were  everywhere  called  out  to  put  down  the  workmen,  and  for 
the  first  time  in  American  history  Federal  troops  battled  with  strikers  in 
city  streets.  The  effect  was  instantaneous.  Stephens,  and  the  leaders  of 
the  workers  in  general,  who  since  the  sixties  had  been  dallying  with  the 
various  social  reforms  in  the  confidence  that  they  were  championing 

1  Powderly,  161,  168. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          135 

"  the  people  "  against  the  tyranny  of  the  newly-created  capitalistic  class, 
and  that  they  had  but  to  raise  the  banners  for  all  good  Americans  to  rally 
to  the  defence  of  the  national  tradition,  had  been  offering  the  hand  of 
reconciliation  even  to  the  capitalists.  The  answer  they  received  was  the 
erection  of  huge  fortress-like  armories  throughout  the  industrial  cities,  the 
revival  of  conspiracy  laws,  and  a  willing  acquiescence  in  the  repressive 
measures  of  the  blacklist  and  the  lockout. 

The  result  upon  the  worker  was  threefold.  Immediately  it  sent  a  wave 
of  solidarity  and  class-consciousness  throughout  the  ranks;  never  was 
hatred  of  the  capitalist  and  sympathy  with  fellow- worker  so  wide-spread 
in  American  history  as  in  the  next  decade.  Labor,  which  had  been  urged 
again  and  again  to  turn  to  politics,  with  no  avail,  united  eagerly  with  the 
farmers'  greenback  party  and  in  the  next  two  years  achieved  substantial 
victories  at  the  polls.  But  this  political  expression  of  the  resentment  of 
the  workers  soon  burnt  itself  out;  the  greenback  platform  that  bound 
them  to  the  farmers  became  meaningless  with  the  disappearance  in  1878 
of  the  premium  on  gold  and  the  resumption  of  specie  payment,  the 
Democratic  politicians  managed  to  corral  the  positions  and  machinery  of 
the  Greenback  Labor  Party,  and,  perhaps  most  important  of  all,  pros- 
perity set  in  in  1879  and  made  economic  action  once  more  profitable. 

More  important  ultimately  than  the  immediate  political  direction  given 
by  the  strikes  of  1877  was  the  great  impetus  imparted  to  business  union- 
ism, that  is,  to  an  opportunist  policy  of  rejecting  the  appeal  to  the  public 
and  to  the  reason  of  the  capitalist  in  favor  of  taking  all  possible  measures 
to  increase  the  bargaining  power  of  labor  itself.  The  appeal  of  the  work- 
ers had  been  met  by  bayonets;  it  was  obviously  impossible  to  put  faith  in 
generous  policies  which  could  not  hope  to  be  effective  until  a  long  process 
of  education  had  taken  place.  These  ultimate  aims  were  not  rejected; 
they  were  merely  postponed  while  the  workers  were  insuring  a  roof  over 
their  heads.  Indeed  the  "first  principles"  of  the  Knights,  retained  many 
loyal  adherents  even  while  they  were  being  relegated  to  the  background  as 
practical  measures  of  immediate  protection  and  relief.  But  it  cannot  be 
gainsaid  that,  in  spite  of  the  persistence  officially  of  the  social  philosophy 
of  the  Knights,  the  strikes  of  1877  marked  the  turning  point  at  which  the 
mass  of  the  workers  definitely  foreswore  a  primary  interest  in  social 
reform  for  the  grinding  business  of  pulling  themselves  up  slowly  by  their 
own  efforts.  Not  until  they  had  made  a  clear  and  a  secure  place  for 
themselves  within  American  business  itself,  until  they  could  stand  up  to 
the  capitalist  and  say  him  nay,  would  they  again,  as  a  settled  policy,  seek 
to  transcend  the  framework  of  business  life. 


136  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

The  attitude  which  thus  became  ascendent,  in  its  resolve  to  proceed 
one  step  at  a  time  as  well  as  in  its  note  of  some  further  aim  lying  hid, 
biding  its  time,  is  to  be  found  in  the  testimony  of  Strasser  of  the  Cigar- 
makers  before  a  Senate  Committee.  Strasser  had  been  a  Marxian;  he 
was  with  Samuel  Gompers  the  leader  of  the  "new"  or  business  unionism. 

Q.  You  are  seeking  to  improve  home  matters  first? 

A.  Yes,  sir,  I  look  first  to  the  trade  I  represent;  I  look  first  to  cigars,  to  the 
interests  of  the  men  who  employ  me  to  represent  their  interest. 

Chairman:  I  was  only  asking  you  in  regard  to  your  ultimate  ends. 

Witness:  We  have  no  ultimate  ends.  We  are  going  on  from  day  to  day.  We 
are  fighting  only  for  immediate  objects  —  objects  that  can  be  realized  in  a  few 
years. 

By  Mr.  Call:  You  want  something  better  to  eat  and  to  wear,  and  better 
houses  to  live  in? 

A.  Yes,  we  want  to  dress  better  and  to  live  better,  and  become  better  citizens 
generally. 

The  Chairman:  I  see  that  you  are  a  little  sensitive  lest  it  should  be  thought 
that  you  are  a  mere  theorizer.  I  do  not  look  upon  you  in  that  light  at  all. 

The  Witness:  Well,  we  say  in  our  constitution  that  we  are  opposed  to  theo- 
rists, and  I  have  to  represent  the  organization  here.  We  are  all  practical 


When  in  Rome  do  as  the  Romans  do,  especially  if  one  be  bent  upon 
overthrowing  the  Roman  citadel! 

Though  as  we  shall  see  this  business  unionism  ultimately  captured  the 
Knights,  it  was  in  the  new  and  the  reorganized  older  national  trade  unions 
that  it  first  became  powerful.  It  is  significant  that  Strasser  was  elected 
president  of  the  Cigarmakers  in  the  very  year  of  the  great  strikes.  He 
and  the  president  of  the  New  York  local,  Samuel  Gompers,  impressed  by 
the  failure  of  a  strike  of  their  own  in  1877  against  the  tenement  house 
system,  resolved  to  recreate  their  union,  and  later  if  possible  the  entire 
labor  movement,  upon  the  lines  of  the  strong  British  trade  unions.  In 
the  convention  of  1879  they  had  their  way.  The  international  officers 
were  given  complete  control  over  the  local  unions;  an  immediate  gain  in 
members  was  sacrificed,  through  the  institution  of  high  membership  dues, 
to  a  large  protective  fund;  and  an  extensive  benefit  system  was  introduced 
to  hold  the  union  together  when  hard  times,  hitherto  the  death  of  all 
previous  American  organizations,  had  made  the  prospect  of  immediate 
advancement  uncertain.  Moreover,  the  central  officers  were  empowered 
to  transfer  funds  from  a  strong  to  a  weak  local.  As  a  consequence  of  this 
1  Quoted  in  Commons,  II,  309. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          137 

policy,  the  union  increased  from  2,729  in  1879  to  14,604  in  iSSi.1  Slowly 
but  surely,  although  it  was  not  until  the  emergence  of  the  A.  F.  L.  in  the 
late  eighties  that  the  movement  became  general,  the  national  unions  reor- 
ganized upon  the  model  of  the  cigarmakers,  encouraged  as  they  were  by  the 
good  times  following  1879  to  extend  their  policy  of  strikes  and  boycotts. 

Meanwhile  the  effect  of  the  1877  strikes  upon  the  Knights  of  Labor 
had  been  more  doubtful.  Officially  the  Order  denied  all  connection  with 
the  strikes;  they  played  no  large  part  in  their  methods.  Actually  many 
members  took  part  in  them,  and  thereafter,  for  all  its  high  principles, 
the  Knights  became  an  aggressive  and  protective  body.  Moreover,  for 
those  strikers  who  were  largely  unskilled  and  unconnected  with  any 
national  organization,  it  was  the  easiest  course  for  them  to  declare  their 
adhesion  to  the  Order  in  a  body,  though  their  motives  might  not  include  a 
single  one  of  the  rather  middle-class  aims  for  which  the  Order  ostensibly 
stood.  Throughout  its  history  the  Knights  were  recruited  largely  from 
such  locals,  which  passed  within  and  without  the  fold  with  equal  celerity 
and  facility;  the  usual  procedure  was  first  to  declare  a  strike,  and  then 
afterwards,  as  a  source  of  strength  and  prestige,  to  join  the  Knights  for 
such  period  as  might  be  advisable.  ;  Theoretically  a  highly  centralized 
body,  the  Order  never  seems  to  have  maintained  the  firm  hold  upon  its 
members  which  the  elaborate  benefit  systems  and  the  fairly  representa- 
tive character  of  the  conventions  of  the  national  unions  gave  them.  The 
whole  organization,  in  fact,  was  modeled  somewhat  on  the  lines  of  the 
soviet  system  of  Russia :  Local  Assemblies,  comprising  all  the  trades  in  a 
given  locality,  sent  delegates  to  the  District  Assemblies,  and  these  in  turn 
were  represented  in  the  General  Assembly,  which  thus,  lacking  any  direct 
contact  with  the  locals,  could  not  appreciably  influence  their  action. 
This  state  of  affairs  made  for  sudden  and  large  accretions  in  membership 
in  time  of  stress  and  just  as  rapid  falling  off  when  no  more  was  to  be 
gained;  but,  and  herein  lies  its  importance,  it  was  the  only  method 
whereby,  outside  of  strong  industrial  unions,  the  semi-skilled  and  the 
unskilled  could  be  reached. 

The  direct  result  of  the  1877  strikes  upon  the  Knights  of  Labor  was 
to  bring  about  that  national  organization  that  rivalry  between  the  Phila- 
delphia and  Pittsburgh  District  Assemblies  had  hitherto  prevented.  A 
convention  at  Reading  in  1878  became  the  first  General  Assembly, 
adopted  the  preamble  of  the  Industrial  Brotherhood,  and  declared  for  the 
lifting  of  the  veil  of  secrecy,  which  was  finally  done  in  1 88 1.  The  specific 
measures  proposed  were,  the  establishment  of  bureaus  of  labor  statistics, 
1  Quoted  in  Commons,  II,  308. 


138  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  establishment  of  cooperative  institutions,  productive  and  distributive, 
the  freedom  of  the  public  lands,  employers'  liability,  the  weekly  wage, 
mechanics'  lien  laws,  "  the  substitution  of  arbitration  for  strikes,  where- 
ever  employers  and  employees  are  willing  to  meet  on  equitable  grounds," 
the  abolition  of  child  labor  under  fourteen,  of  prison  labor,  the  securing  of 
equal  pay  for  equal  work  for  both  sexes,  the  eight-hour  day,  and  financial 
reform.  These  measures  all  obtained  a  certain  allegiance  from  the 
workers,  who  would  undoubtedly  have  welcomed  them  all;  yet  Powderly 
confesses  that  the  whole  preamble  and  its  hangover  of  ideas  from  the 
sixties  represented  the  notions  of  the  founders  and  leaders,  and  not  those 
of  the  men  themselves.  They  advocated  pure  trade  unionism  as  much 
more  successful  in  strikes,  whereas  Stephens  and  Powderly  placed  all 
their  faith  in  educative  measures.1  Almost  the  only  point  of  the  "  first 
principles"  that  really  attracted  the  workers  was  its  class-consciousness, 
typified  in  its  mottoes:  "That  is  the  most  perfect  government  in  which  an 
injury  to  one  is  the  concern  of  all"  2  and,  "When  bad  men  combine,  the 
good  must  associate,  else  they  will  fall,  one  by  one,  the  unpitied  sacrifice 
in  a  contemptible  struggle."  3  The  Knights  were  strong,  when  they  were 
strong,  because  of  this  universality  of  appeal;  yet  their  strength  was 
exerted  rather  upon  the  unskilled  who  looked  eagerly  upon  them  from 
without  than  upon  those  who  from  within  realized  the  structural  weak- 
ness of  the  Order. 

The  years  following  the  centralization  were  mainly  occupied  with 
strikes  conducted  by  the  District  Assemblies.  Growth  was  comparatively 
slow,  from  20,000  in  1879  to  50,000  in  1883,  4  with  almost  as  many  with- 
drawals each  year  as  new  members.  The  question  of  politics  as  a  method 
of  carrying  out  the  legislative  ends  of  the  Order,  was  finally  and  charac- 
teristically disposed  of  by  leaving  the  decision  to  the  local  assemblies. 
During  this  period  old  unions  were  reorganized  and  new  ones  formed, 
which,  on  attaining  maturity,  left  the  mother  order  and  formed  national 
trade  unions  of  their  own.  The  strikes,  despite  the  obvious  unsuitability 
of  the  Knights'  structure  for  such  tests,  were  largely  confined  to  a  single 
trade,  and  were  almost  uniformly  unsuccessful;  the  Telegraphers'  strike 
of  1883  was  typical.  The  fact  that  this  was  a  period  of  prosperity  when 
the  national  trade  unions  were  generally  gaining  their  demands  made  • 
this  a  particularly  heavy  blow  at  the  Order's  popularity.  Powderly,  who 

1  Powderly,  op.  cii.,  272. 


3  Constitution  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1878. 

4  Commons,  II,  343~344- 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          139 

had  succeeded  Stephens,  though  personally  bent  on  putting  into  practice 
his  cooperative  ideas,  was  compelled  in  1883  to  confess  that  not  coopera- 
tion but  strikes  was  what  the  members  wanted.  And  when  these  failed  it 
was  to  the  boycott  that  the  Order  turned. 

The  industrial  revolution  first  made  its  appearance  on  a  large  scale 
during  the  Civil  War;  yet  it  was  productive,  in  the  labor  movement,  of 
organization  largely  in  the  semi-skilled  trades.  For  thirty  years  there- 
after the  craft  unions  were  practically  dominant.  It  was  not  till  the 
eighties  that  the  country  became  really  industrialized,  that  railroads  were 
extended  to  every  hamlet,  and  that  factories  sprang  up  in  great  numbers. 
And  it  was  not  till  the  eighties  that  labor  organization  and  industrial 
unrest  became  a  really  potent  factor  in  our  national  life.  After  the  great 
outburst  of  the  mid-decade  labor  settled  back  into  the  relatively  stable 
form  from  which  it  has  but  recently  started  to  emerge. 

The  prosperity  of  the  early  eighties  waned  in  1884,  and  did  not  recover 
until  three  years  later.    Wages  were  on  every  hand  reduced,  but,  unlike 
earlier  depressions,  not  very  much  unemployment  resulted.    This,  to- 
gether with  the  increased  strength  of  the  unions,  resulting  in  part  from 
the  adoption  of  the  benefit  system  and  in  part  from  the  natural  growth 
of  industry,  sufficed  to  keep  the  organizations  above  water  and  to  give 
them  great  fighting  strength.  \  Many  strikes,  the  first  resort,  having 
failed  in  1884,  the  Knights  turned  to  boycotting  and  achieved  consider- 
able success  with  this  formidable  weapon:    But  in  1885  conditions  im- 
proved a  trifle,  and  at  once  strikes  broke  out  spontaneously  throughout 
the  country.    It  was  the  unskilled,  the  lumbermen,  the  lowest-paid  raiL- 
road  workers,  those  whom  no  trade  union  would  accept,  who  burst  forth 
in  a  universal  outcry  for  better  conditions.    It  could  hardly  be  said  that 
the  Knights  of  Labor,  though  the  direct  gainer,  was  the  cause  of  these 
industrial  conflicts;  they  rather  came  as  spontaneous  protests,  and  then, 
after  the  men  had  struck,  they  affiliated  with  the  Knights.    The  em- 
ployers, taking  alarm,  generally  forced  a  second  strike  to  beat  the  newly 
formed  union.      Thus  the  shopmen  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  pre- 
vented a  wage  reduction  in  1884,  joined  the  Knights,  and  had  to  strike 
again.   A  similar  strike,  supported  by  the  railroad  brotherhoods,  occurred 
on  the  roads  controlled  by  the  notorious  Jay  Gould.    The  next  year 
would  have  seen  a  further  general  strike  had  not  Gould  met  the  Knights 
and  concluded  a  bargain  with  them.    This  dramatic  event,  in  which 
Powderly  conferred  on  equal  terms  with  the  most  powerful  and  the  most 
feared  capitalist  in  the  country,  inspired  among  the  workingmen  in  all 
parts  of  the  country  respect  and  delirious  admiration  for  the  Knights  of 


140  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Labor.  Here  at  last  was  a  powerful  protector;  at  once  they  struck  and 
appealed  to  the  Order  for  aid.  It  was  estimated  that  the  Order  probably 
contained  as  many  as  five  million  members !  Congress  and  the  state-legis- 
latures went  out  of  their  way  to  conciliate  this  labor  vote.  Never,  not 
even  in  1877,  had  such  a  wave  of  solidarity  and  hatred  for  the  "capital- 
ists" passed  through  the  labor  ranks  of  the  country;  men  declared  them- 
selves ready  to  give  sympathy,  money,  even  their  lives  to  aid  their  fellows. 
They  spurned  the  very  idea  of  arbitrating  when  they  belonged  to  such  a 
powerful  organization. 

\  To  the  outsider  the  Knights  of  Labor  seemed  destined  to  become  the 
dominant  and  exclusive  labor  organization  in  the  country.  With  an 
actual  membership  in  1886  of  over  half  a  million,  and  a  reputation  worthy 
of  ten  times  that  size,  the  Order  seemed  invincible.  But  none  knew  better 
than  Powderly  himself,  in  the  midst  of  his  pride  over  becoming  a  figure  of 
national  importance,  that  at  bottom  the  Order  was  far  from  a  success. 
None  of  the  new  members  cared  the  slightest  for  the  principles  for  which  it 
stood,  principles  that  hesitated  to  employ  the  strike  at  all;  few  of  them 
had  any  direct  or  lasting  connection  with  the  Knights.  It  was  just  at  this 
crisis  that  the  Order  proved  its  inherent  unfitness:  in  spite  of  all  the 
emphasis  it  placed  upon  education,  it  was  unable  to  accomplish  any  real 
discipline  or  training  of  the  thousands  who  had  literally  forced  themselves 
into  its  ranks.  There  was  nothing  to  bridge  the  gap  between  the  pure 
self-interest,  which  had  led  the  men  to  join,  and  the  social  idealism  of  the 
leaders  and  their  first  principles.  The  two  strains  would  not  merge;  and 
so  the  Knights  gave  way  to  another  organization  in  which  they  would. 
Even  in  1886,  at  the  very  height  of  the  power  of  the  Order,  the  workers 
had  repudiated  such  a  baseless  social  idealism  and  clung  to  the  methods 
of  business  unionism;  it  was  but  a  question  of  time  before  they  would 
desert  to  an  organization  whose  structure  corresponded  more  closely 
with  their  aim. 

That  structure  had  already  been  started.  In  1881  there  had  met  at 
Pittsburgh  a  small  body  of  delegates  to  form  the  Federation  of  Organized 
Trades  and  Labor  Unions  of  the  United  States  and  Canada,  all  members 
of  trade  unions  and  some  of  them  disgusted  with  the  poor  showing  of 
the  Knights.  The  body  was  organized  on  the  model  of  the  Trades  Union- 
Congress  of  Great  Britain;  its  amis  were  to  be,  like  that  body,  an  organ 
of  publicity  and  propaganda,  and  it  was  hoped  to  establish  an  American 
replica  of  the  Parliamentary  Committee  of  the  British  congfess.1  The 
call  had  emanated  from  the  same  men  who  had  already  undertaken  to 

1  Commons,  II,  319. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          141 

reconstruct  American  unionism  on  the  British  basis;  Gompers  took  a 
prominent  part,  ran  for  president,  and  was  defeated  only  because  of  his 
intimate  association  with  the  socialists.  But,  far  more  important,  he 
was  made  chairman  of  the  Committee  in  the  Plan  of  Organization. 
A  contemporary  writer  in  the  Pittsburgh  Commercial  Gazette,  with  parti- 
san intent,  states:  "Mr.  Gompers  is  the  leader  of  the  Socialistic  element, 
which  is  pretty  well  represented  in  the  Congress,  and  one  of  the  smartest 
men  present.  It  is  thought  that  the  attempt  will  be  made  to  capture 
the  organization  for  Mr.  Gompers  (for  president)  as  the  representative 
of  the  Socialists,  and'if  such  an  attempt  is  made,  whether  it  succeeds  or 
not,  there  will  likely  be  some  lively  work,  as  the  delegates  opposed  to 
Socialism  are  determined  not  to  be  controlled  by  it.  If  the  Socialists 
do  not  have  their  own  way,  they  may  bolt,  as  they  have  always  done  in 
the  past.  If  they  do  bolt,  the  power  of  the  proposed  organization  will 
be  so  seriously  crippled  as  almost  to  destroy  its  usefulness."  * 

But  Gompers  withdrew  to  save  the  organization,  and  it  adopted  a 
declaration  of  principles  that  has  to  this  day  remained  in  the  constitution 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor.  "Whereas,  a  struggle  is  going 
on  in  the  nations  of  the  civilized  world  between  the  oppressors  and  the 
oppressed  in  all  countries,  a  struggle  between  capital,  and  labor,  which 
must  grow  in  intensity  from  year  to  year  and  work  disastrous  results  to 
the  toiling  millions  of  all  nations  if  not  combined  for  mutual  protection 
and  benefit;  the  history  of  the  wage-workers  of  all  countries  is  the 
history  of  constant  struggle  and  misery  engendered  by  ignorance  and 
disunion;  whereas  the  history  of  the  non-producers  of  all  ages  proves 
that  the  minority,  throughly  organized,  may  work  wonders  for  good  or 
evil;  it  behooves  the  representatives  of  the  workers  of  North  America,  in 
Congress  assembled,  to  adopt  such  measures  and  disseminate  such 
principles  among  the  people  of  our  country  as  will  unite  them  for  all 
time  to  come  and  to  secure  the  recognition  of  the  rights  to  which  they 
are  justly  entitled,  and  conforming  to  the  old  adage,  'In  Union  there  is 
strength/  the  formation  of  a  Federation  embracing  every  trade  and 
labor  organization  in  North  America,  a  union  founded  upon  a  basis  as 
broad  as  the  land  we  live  in,  is  our  only  hope.  The  past  history  of  trade 
unions  proves  that  small  organizations,  well  conducted,  have  accom- 
plished great  good,  though  their  efforts  have  not  been  of  that  lasting 
character  which  a  thorough  unification  of  all  the  different  branches  of 
industrial  workers  is  bound  to  secure."  2 

1  Proceedings,  First  Session,  Fed.  of  Org.  Trades  and  Labor  Unions. 


142  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

The  objects  were  declared  to  be  the  encouragement  and  formation  of 
trades  and  labor  unions,  of  national  and  international  trade  unions,  and 
of  trade  and  labor  assemblies  and  councils,  and  to  secure  legislation 
favorable  to  the  interests  of  the  industrial  classes.  To  this  latter  end 
there  was  instituted  a  legislative  committee  to  serve  as  a  lobby,  on  the 
British  model.  The  platform  included  incorporation  of  unions,  to 
protect  their  property,  compulsory  education,  abolition  of  child  labor, 
uniform  apprentice  laws,  the  eight-hour  day,  ("  Grasp  one  idea,  less 
hours  better  pay")  protection  from  prison  labor,  from  immigrants,  and 
from  the  truck  system.1 

But  the  congress  had  little  success  with  legislation,  and  by  1884  it 
was  decided  to  abandon  British  inspiration  and  to  embark  on  an  ex- 
tensive eight-hour  program.  The  report  stated:  "This  much  has  been 
determined  by  the  history  of  the  national  eight-hour  law — it  is  useless 
to  wait  for  legislation  in  this  matter.  In  the  world  of  economic  reforrh 
the  working  classes  must  depend  upon  themselves  for  the  enforcement 
of  measures  as  well  as  for  their  conception.  A  united  demand  for  a 
shorter  working  day,  backed  by  thorough  organization,  will  prove  vastly 
more  effective  than  the  enactment  of  a  thousand  laws  depending  for 
their  enforcement  upon  the  pleasure  of  aspiring  politicians  or  syco- 
phantic department  officials."  Accordingly  the  congress  abandoned 
its  purely  advisory  character  by  resolving  on  a  general  eight-hour  strike 
for  May  i  ,1886,  and  called  upon  the  Knights  of  Labor  to  cooperate 
with  them.2 

The  reasons  for  this  resolution  put  through  in  spite  of  the  smallness 
and  the  general  indifference  of  the  members,  were  complex.  The 
\  Knights,  first  of  all,  gained  their  power  through  strikes  for  a  retention 
of  wage  rates;  if  the  trade  unions  took  up  the  eight-hour  strike,  so  popular 
a  few  years  before,  they  could  greatly  increase  their  prestige^  That 
this  actually  resulted  is  shown  by  the  great  increase  in  membership  and 
in  locals  in  the  next  two  years.  For  the  majority,  the  eight-hour  day 
appealed  as  an  aid  in  "making  work;"  but  Stewardism  was  rapidly 
gaining  strength  at  this  time,  and  it  is  of  the  essence  of  Stewardism  that 
it  merges,  in  practice,  with  the  make- work  theories.  Thus  in  1882  the 
two  motives  were  blended  in  a  speech  hi  the  convention:  "The  eight-hour 
day  will  furnish  more  work  at  increased  wages.  We  declare  it  will 
permit  the  possession  and  enjoyment  of  more  wealth  by  those  who 
create  it.  It  will  dimmish  the  power  of  the  rich  over  the  poor,  not  by 

1  A.  F.  L.,  Proceedings,  ist  Convention. 
*Ibid.,  Fourth  Convention. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          143 

making  the  rich  poorer  and  the  poor  richer.  It  will  create  the  conditions 
necessary  for  the  education  and  the  intellectual  advancement  of  the 
masses.  It  will  not  disturb,  jar,  confuse,  or  throw  out  of  order  the 
present  wage  system  of  labor.  It  is  a  measure  that  will  permanently 
increase  wages  without  at  the  same  time  increasing  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion of  wealth.  It  will  decrease  the  poverty  and  increase  the  wealth 
of  all  wage  laborers.  And  it  will,  after  a  few  years,  gradually  merge  the 
wage  system  into  a  system  of  industrial  cooperation  in  which  wages 
will  represent  the  earnings  and  not  (as  now)  the  necessities  of  the  wage 
.laborer."  l 

The  Knights  of  Labor  was  at  the  height  of  its  meteoric  career.  Pow- 
derly  had  little  faith  in  Stewardism,  or  the  eight-hour  in  general;  he  was, 
besides,  rather  jealous  of  the  Federation.  Nothing  was  done  about 
cooperating  in  the  general  strike,  and  just  before  May  i,  1886,  he  sent 
out  a  secret  circular  advising  against  it.  But  the  workers  in  general 
knew  nothing  of  this  secret  disapproval,  and  flocked  to  the  Knights  in 
greater  numbers  than  ever.  In  March  a  great  strike  broke  out  on  the 
Gould  lines,  marked  by  almost  as  much  violence  as  those  of  1877;  before 
this  had  been  settled,  the  eight-hour  strike  began.  The  unions,  de- 
serted by  the  officials  of  the  Knights,  were  nevertheless  successful  in 
securing  large  reductions  in  hours  in  many  trades;  but  they  never  forgave 
Powderly  for  his  lack  of  support.  And  on  May  3  occurred  the  Hay- 
market  bombing  in  Chicago,  which  caused  an  instant  revulsion,  not 
only  on  the  part  of  the  great  mass  of  the  American  people,  but  on  the 
part  of  the  workers  themselves.  As  Gompers  put  it,  "The  effect  of  that 
bomb  was  that  it  not  only  killed  the  policemen,  but  it  killed  our  eight- 
hour  movement  for  that  year  and  for  a  few  years  after,  notwithstanding 
we  had  absolutely  no  connection  with  these  people."  ! 

The  Knights  of  Labor  subsided  almost  as  rapidly  as  it  had  grown. 
In  the  beginning  of  1887  it  had  grown  to  70x3,000  members;  in  1890,  but 
ioo,ooo.3  By  1887,  too,  the  bulk  of  the  membership  had  shifted  from 
the  unskilled  workers  of  the  cities  to  the  small  tradesmen  and  artisans 
of  the  country  towns,  those  who  were  attracted  more  by  its  general 
policy  of  uplift  than  by  the  benefit  offered  by  strikes;  and  in  the  early 
nineties  it  became  allied  with  the  Farmers'  Alliance  and  the  Populist^, 
replacing  Powderly  in  1893  with  J.  R.  Sovereign,  an  Iowa  farmer.  Mn 
its  decline  it  remained  true  to  its  "first  principles;"  and  the  fact  that  it 

1  A.  F.  L.,  History,  Encyclopedia,  and  Reference  Book,  215. 

2  Industrial  Commission,  Report,  VII,  623. 
1  Commons,  482,  II. 


144  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

was  to  the  farmers  that  it  made  its  appeal  reveals  not  only  the  persis- 
tence of  the  ideal  of  Jeffersonian  democracy,  but  even  more  how  this 
ideal,  in  its  original  form,  had  ceased  to  be,  as  it  had  been  in  the  eighties, 
the  aim  of  the  workerXThe  effect  of  the  industrial  revolution  and  of 
the  great  mass  of  foreign  labor,  which  had  no  traditional  affiliations  with 
Jeffersonianism,  could  not  be  better  illustrated  than  in  the  strangeness 
with  which  the  following  statement  of  the  traditional  American  ideal, 
which  in  1865  would  have  aroused  a  burst  of  enthusiasm,  fell  upon  the 
ears  of  the  unionists  of  the  nineties: 

"The  order  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  is  not  so  much  intended  to  adjust 
the  relationship  between  the  employer  and  the  employee  as  to  adjust 
natural  resources  and  productive  facilities  to  the  common  interests  of 
the  whole  people,  that  all  who  wish  may  work  for  themselves,  inde- 
pendent of  large  employing  corporations  and  companies.  It  is  not 
founded  on  the  question  of  adjusting  wages,  but  on  the  question  of 
abolishing  the  wage-system  and  the  establishment  of  a  cooperative 
industrial  system.  When  its  real  mission  is  accomplished,  poverty 
will  be  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  the  land  dotted  over  with 
peaceful,  happy  homes.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  Order 
die."  1 

\The  workers  preferred  the  more  immediate  gams  to  be  had  from  the 
national  trade  unions;  they  flocked  to  them  in  increasing  numbers,  anc 
the  history  of  the  decade  from  1885  to  1895  is  a  history  of  the  growth  o: 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  which  had  changed  its  name  from 
that  of  Federation  of  Organized  Trades  in  1886,  at  the  expense  of  the 
Knights.X 

The  rapid  decline  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  did  not  mean  that  all  the 
workers  lost  returned  to  a  state  of  disorganization.  Rather  it  signified 
that  they  had  withdrawn  bodily  from  the  Order  to  found  national  un- 
ions of  their  own,  on  the  Federation  model.  The  Knights,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  recruited  its  membership  from  men  to  whom  not  its  first 
principles  but  its  strike  policy  had  appealed,  and  these  men  furnished 
a  fertile  soil  for  business  unionism.  Back  in  1879  permission  had  been 
given  to  "sojourners"  to  join  one  local  assembly  that  they  might  later 
organize  assemblies  "of  their  own  trade."  Moreover,  it  was  resolved 
that  "  trades  organized  as  trades  may  select  an  executive  officer  of  their 
own,  who  may  have  charge  of  their  organization,  and  organize  local 
assemblies  of  the  trade  in  any  part  of  the  country,  and  attach  them  to 
the  D.  A.  controlling  said  trade  .  .  .  that  trades^so  organized  be  allowed 
2  General  Assembly,  Proceedings,  1894,  i. 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          145 

hold  delegate  conventions  on  matters  pertaining  to  their  trades. "  1 
meant  that  business  trade  unionism  was  allowed  to  form  national 
unions  within  the  Knights;  and  as  time  went  on  the  strictly  workingman 
membership  came  to  be  organized  in  District  Assemblies  which  were  all 
but  in  name  trade  unions.  The  first  of  these  was  the  window-glass 
workers,  but  soon  other  trades,  in  addition  to  those  which  like  the 
miners  were  by  their  nature  industrial  and  not  general,  joined  the  order 
in  a  bodA  Old  trades  unions,  like  the  Knights  of  St.  Crispin,  the  strong 
shoemakers'  union  of  the  sixties  which  had  been  greatly  weakened  by 
the  introduction  of  machinery,  were  taken  over  and  reorganized.  In 
1881  D.  M.  W.  Thompson  wrote:  "I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  found  very 
few  of  the  principles  of  our  Order  in  practice.  In  fact,  there  seems  to 
be  a  general  ignorance,  or  disregard  of  the  principles  of  our  organization. 
The  older  ideas  of  the  former  trade  associations  seem  to  predominate 
and^ontrol  the  actions  of  the  locals  generally. "  2 

Tin  1884  permission  was  given  to  form  national  trade  assemblies,  and, 
after  a  set-back  with  the  rush  of  the  unskilled  in  the  next  two  years, 
this  movement  proceeded  rapidly.  By  1887  there  were  at  least  27 
national  Trade  Assemblies,3  and  P.  J.  McGuire  of  the  Federation 
could  rightly  say,  "The  Knights  of  Labor  are  now  taking  lessons  from 
the  trade  unions,  and  are  forming  themselves  on  National  Trade  Dis- 
trict lines,  which  are  simply  the  skeletons  of  trade  unions  without  their 
flesh  and  blood. "  4  As  business  unionism  thus  grew  in  great  strides  in 
the  heart  of  the  Knights,  the  Trade  Assemblies  one  by  one  broke  loose, 
formed  international  unions,  and  joined  the  A.  F.  L.  This  movement  was 
caused  both  by  a  natural  affinity  to  the  Federation  unions  and  by  a 
growing  disaffection  for  the  Knights'  principles,  and  by  the  bad  name 
which  the  Order  had  gained  from  the  events  of  1886.  Moreover,  the 
Knights  of  Labor  by  their  aggressive  tactics  drove  the  Federation  into 
open  warfare  and  scabbing,  and  when  it  became  impossible  to  belong 
to  both  organizations  there  was  little  doubt  which  side  the  trades  would 
espouse.  By  the  early  nineties,  when  the  Knights  definitely  disappeared 
as  a  labor  organization,  it  was  no  longer  a  question  of  business  unionism 
versus  social  idealism;  it  was  merely  which  type  of  organization  was 
best  suited  to  the  universal  spirit  of  business  unionism.^ 
What,  then,  are  the  reasons  for  the  non-success  of  the  Knights  of  La- 

1  Proceedings,  1879,  7  2. 

*  Philadelphia  Journal  of  United  Labor,  May,  x88x. 

*  Commons,  II,  428. 

4  Carpenter,  Oct.,  1887. 


146  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

bor?  Are  they  that  the  craft  and  not  the  industrial  union  must  be  the 
basis  of  a  strong  labor  movement?  Are  they  that  the  workers  prefer 
their  private  advantage  and  the  gains  which  exclusive  craft  business 
unionism  gives  them  to  the  more  social  and  disinterested  aims  of  improv- 
ing the  conditions  of  the  entire  community?  Both  answers  have  been 
given,  but  neither,  it  appears  after  a  careful  investigation,  is  justified. 
As  to  the  first  the  Order  never  stood  for  industrial  unionism  in  any 
sense;  the  local  assembly  was  not  made  up  of  all  the  workers  employed 
in  a  given  industry,  but  was  mixed  and  corresponded  to  what  is  known 
in  the  Federation  as  a  "labor  union,"  a  body  of  workers  made  up  with- 
out regard  to  either  craft  or  industrial  lines.  The  only  organization 
within  the  knights,  before  the  growth  of  the  trade  assemblies,  which 
was  made  industrial  by  its  regional  distribution,  was  the  assembly  of 
the  coalminers;  and  far  from  proving  that  the  industrial  union  is  value- 
less, this  union,  which  joined  the  A.  F.  L.  in  1896  as  the  United  Mine 
Workers  of  America,  has  become  the  strongest  union  in  the  Federation. 

As  to  the  second  answer,  we  have  seen  that  the  basic  fault  with  the 
Knights  of  Labor  was  not  that  it  tried  to  combine  the  self-interest  of 
the  workers'  desire  to  gain  a  more  stable  and  more  equal  status  in  society 
with  the  idealistic  aim  of  raising  every  one  to  a  better  position  through 
general  political  and  social  reform,  but  rather  that  it  made  no  attempt 
at  all  to  combine  and  merge  them,  and  to  create  an  educative  situation 
in  which  the  broader  would  inevitably  develop  out  of  the  narrower 
motive.  This  the  A.  F.  L.  with  its  underlying  principle  of  Stewardism, 
which  linked  the  good  of  one  group  up  directly  with  the  good  of  all, 
was  able  to  effect,  though  only  after  a  long  and  arduous  training.  \The 
Knights'  structure  failed  because,  like  the  cosmopolitanism  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  in  international  relations,  it  failed  to  take  into  account 
the  solid  foundation  of  group  interests  and  group  loyalties  upon  which 
it  must  ground  itself.  The  industrial  structure  is  not  centralized,  but 
federalized;  and  to  control  it  effectually  labor  must  organize  on  parallel 
lines.  The  only  state  of  industry  with  which  the  Knights  of  Labor 
was  equipped  to  cope  was  the  homogeneous  farming  community,  or 
else,  by  a  political  general  strike,  with  society  as  a  whole. 

Not  only  had  not  the  industrial  revolution  progressed  far  enough  to 
bring  about  a  real  solidarity  of  interests  in  all  classes  of  labor,  but  even 
if  it  had  the  structure  was  unsuited.  The  unskilled  could  not  be  effectually 
organized  until  the  growth  of  large  bodies  of  capital  and  the  subdivi- 
sion of  labor  had  brought  vividly  home  to  the  craft  unions  the  truth 
of  Steward's  contention  that  only  by  raising  the  lowest  could  the  high- 


Conflict  of  Theories  and  Triumph  of  Business  Unionism          147 

est  hope  to  raise  themselves.   The  Knights'  structure  was  thus  either 
belated  or  premature. 

Moreover,  we  must  not  overlook  what  was  brought  forward  by  knights 
themselves  as  the  gravest  defect  of  their  order,  the  extreme  central- 
ization which  concentrated  great  power  in  the  hands  of  executives  who, 
as  it  happened,  were  out  of  touch  with  the  wishes  of  the  rank  and  fi 
The  District  Assembly  was  given  supreme  power  over  its  Local  Assem- 
blies, and  the  General  Assembly  over  the  District  Assemblies;  while 
the  general  officers  were  elected  at  two  removes  from  the  workers. 
Consequently,  in  view  of  a  situation  affording  little  flexibility  to  adjust 
specific  situations  (there  was  the  same  constitution  for  every  local  and 
district  assembly)  and  but  slightly  democratic  and  responsive  to  the 
control  of  the  membership,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  serious  internal 
troubles  would  arise.  Thus  in  1894  a  large  number  of  delegates,  includ- 
ing National  Trades  Assembly  135,  the  miners,  were  locked  out  of  the 
General  Assembly  and  withdrew  to  form  a  rival  Independent  Order  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor  of  their  own,  adopting  a  constitution  "  which  was 
so  framed  as  to  prevent  the  general  officers  from  exercising  autocratic 
power,  as  they  have  been  and  are  doing  in  the  old  Knights  of  Labor, 
for  the  purpose  of  continuing  themselves  in  office."  l  Powderly  was 
severely  attacked  for  a  number  of  his  actions,  and  in  general  a  strong 
reaction  against  a  central  body  with  great  powers  favored  the  looser 
structure  of  the  Federation. 

We  have  thus  far  traced  the  general  development  of  ideas  in  the  labor 
movement  from  its  industrial  beginnings  in  the  Civil  War  period  until 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  arose  into  a  dominating  position  in 
1890.  Thereafter,  interesting  and  varied  as  we  re  the  events  that  marked 
the  history  of  the  unions,  the  type  tended  to  remain  quite  stable;  every- 
where business  unionism  under  the  aegis  of  Samuel  Gompers  was  dom- 
inant. Inasmuch  as  it  can  hardly  be  claimed  that  even  today  the  type 
has  been  superseded,  and  as  such  business  unionism  seems  to  repre- 
sent a  fairly  permanent  stage  in  American  labor  history,  it  is  requisite 
to  pause  here  and  undertake,  more  fully  than  has  hitherto  been  done, 
a  careful  consideration  of  the  aims,  the  philosophy,  and  the  implications 
contained  in  the  activities  of  that  type  of  group  individualism  we  haye 
called  business  unionism. 

1  Official  Handbook,  Independent  Order  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  1896. 


8.    BUSINESS  UNIONISM— RELATIONS  WITHIN  THE  GROUP 

OUR  modern  industrial  civilization  rests  largely  upon  the  theory  of 
the  freedom  of  contract.  When  a  man  has  a  piece  of  goods  which  he 
has  made  he  takes  it  to  another,  and  the  two  freely  bargain  upon  the 
price  to  be  paid  for  it;  what  that  price  shall  be  is  determined  by  the 
amount  of  the  commodity  available  and  the  eagerness  with  which  the 
second  individual  desires  to  secure  it,  and  must  under  no  conditions  be 
the  subject  of  political  interferences  on  the  part  of  the  government, 
under  penalty  of  entirely  disorganizing  the  machinery. of  production. 
This  theory  has  been  also  applied  by  those  who  desire  to  employ  work- 
men, with  the  approval  of  the  vast  majority  of  the  community,  to  the 
commodity  which  those  workmen  have  to  dispose  of.  Those  consider- 
ations which  govern  the  price  and  purchase  of  the  raw  materials  neces- 
sary to  the  process  of  manufacture  have  been  kept  in  view  with  regard 
to  that  essential  raw  material,  human  labor.  In  buying  bales  of  cotton 
the  purcashing  agents  of  a  textile  mill  secure  the  lowest  quotations  for 
the  quality  they  desire,  while  the  cotton  brokers  seek  to  dispose  of  their 
cotton  to  the  highest  bidder.  Likewise  the  boss  in  charge  of  hiring 
hands  gives  jobs  to  those  who  will  accept  the  lowest  wages,  while  work- 
ers, if  they  are  in  a  position  to  choose,  secure  employment  at  the  fac- 
tory that  offers  highest  wages.  If  the  price  of  cotton  rises  so  high  that 
it  is  no  longer  profitable  to  manufacture  cloth,  the  demand  is  stopped 
and  brokers  with  cotton  on  their  hands  are  forced  to  lower  their  prices. 
If  they  fall  so  low  that  it  becomes  unprofitable  to  grow  it,  the  growers 
cease  to  supply  any,  and  the  manufacturers  are  obliged  to  increase  their 
offers.  Similarly,  if  a  man  asks  too  high  wages,  mills  are  free  to  shut 
down  until  he  will  accept  lower  pay;  whereas  if  the  mills  offer  too  low 
wages,  the  men  are  free  to  withdraw  their  labor — individually — until 
the  offer  is  raised.  This — so  runs  the  theory — would  result  in  the  per- 
manent withdrawal  of  a  number  of  workers  from  the  industrial  field 
and  from  this  world,  did  they  not  have  the  foresight,  imitating  the 
planter  who  hi  similar  circumstances  reduces  his  acreage  and  the  sup- 
ply of  cotton,  to  reduce  the  supply  of  laborers  through  abstention  from 
the  consequences  of  marriage.  Thus  automatically  the  supply  of  raw 
material  is  adjusted  to  the  demand,  and  a  free  bargain  necessarily 
being  to  the  advantage  of  all  parties  concerned— else  why  should  they 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  149 

enter  into  it? — the  general  welfare  is  promoted  by  the  beneficent  laws 
of  political  economy.  It  was  advantageous  to  the  cotton  planter  to 
sell  his  cotton  at  the  price  he  did,  else  why  did  he  engage  in  the  busi- 
ness of  growing  it?  It  was  of  advantage  to  the  worker  to  sell  his  labor 
for  the  wages  offered,  rather  than  to  starve,  else  why  did  he  not  starve? 
To  suggest,  as  some  did — for  there  are  unfortunately  always  malcon- 
tents— that  a  divine  plan  whereby  most  men  could  not  afford  to  pur- 
chase cotton  shirts  might  not  be  preferable  to  a  more  human  arrange- 
ment whereby  the  amount  of  cotton  grown  and  manufactured  was 
adjusted  to  the  number  of  cotton  garments  required  to  clothe  the 
community  properly,  was  almost  as  blasphemous  as  to  suggest  that 
the  wages  paid  might  bear  some  relation  to  the  cost  of  living. 

Unfortunately  for  this  theory,  cotton  brokers,  desiring  neither  to 
accept  prices  offered  nor  to  engage  in  another  occupation,  found  it  to  their 
advantage  to  engage  in  agreements  among  themselves  to  keep  the  price 
of  cotton  at  a  certain  level;  and  in  other  commodities  the  same  consid- 
erations prompted  the  formation  of  corporations  to  control  the  entire 
supply  of  that  commodity  and  thus  secure  higher  prices.  This  policy 
has  been  in  America  notably  successful,  from  the  point  of  view  of  those 
who  initiated  it,  in  the  raw  materials  of  iron,  copper,  and  anthracite 
coal,  for  example,  to  say  nothing  of  manufactured  products.  Hence 
in  this  particular  the  theory  has  been  forced  to  give  way  before  facts, 
and  the  Supreme  Court  has  lately  authoritatively  established  the  new 
principle  as  an  integral  part  of  that  body  of  practices  known  as  "good 
business. " 

This  principle,  even  then  quite  familiar  in  industrial  life,  was  the^pol- 
icy  which  triumphed  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor.  VThe 
first  principles  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  had  been  pushed  aside  as  ir- 
relevant to  the  realities  of  American  economic  life  by  the  rising  industri- 
alism of  the  seventies  and  eighties;  the  workers,  then,  would  adopt  a 
policy  that  was  "practical"  and  in  accord  with  good  business.\ They 
would  accept  the  business  regime,  and  seek  by  approved  business  tac- 
tics to  acquire  just  as  good  a  place  in  the  business  structure  as  they  pos- 
sibly could.  Their  antagonists  had  no  scruples  about  their  duties  to 
the  community  at  large,  or  to  any  particular  portion  of  it;  for  this,  it 
must  be  remembered,  was  the  era  of  "The  public  be  damned."  To 
the  newly  arrived  immigrants,  who  flocked  to  our  shores  in  such  num- 
bers in  the  eighties,  true  Americanism  seemed  to  mean  the  forgetting 
of  those  amenities  of  life  which  had  softened  the  daily  toil  of  the 
peasant  in  Europe,  and  the  impatient  plunge  into  that  orgy  of  business 


150  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

enterprise  and  perilous  rate-wars  and  price-cutting  which  makes  the 
eighties  stand  out  as  in  some  respects  the  most  typical  and  least 
creditable  era  of  American  industrialism.  With  the  captains  of  industry 
and  finance,  who  were  at  that  period  enjoying  perhaps  more  of  public 
favor  than  ever  before  or  since,  regarded  everywhere  as  the  truly  great 
citizens  of  the  Republic,  it  is  not  hard  to  understand  how  the  workers, 
after  a  last  lingering  glance  at  the  agricultural  democracy  vanishing 
over  the  western  horizon,  should  feel  rather  a  just  pride  than  a  sense 
of  disappointment  that  they  were  at  last  becoming  hard-headed  busi- 
ness men.  For  the  worker  has  ever  desired  to  be  equal  to  the  majority 
of  his  fellows;  and  when  the  psychology  of  America  had  changed  from 
that  of  the  thrifty  farmer  to  that  of  the  enterprising  business  man,  the 
ami  of  the  worker  underwent  a  quite  similar  transformation.  It  was 
in  this  very  decade  that  the  American  labor  movement  took  shape  and 
became  what  it  is  today;  and  no  observer  can  afford  to  overlook  the 
fact  that  the  modern  worker  has  a  priceless  heritage  of  victories  and 
set-backs,  of  patient  tiresome  organization  crowned  by  a  grudging 
recognition  in  collective  bargaining.  He  has  risen,  as  assuredly  as  ever 
did  a  Rockefeller  or  a  Carnegie,  to  his  present  position  solely  by  his 
own  unaided  efforts;  it  is  he  who  should  be  the  true  hero  of  "Up  from 
the  Depths."  And  today,  even  though  he  recognize  that  changed 
times  demand  changed  policies,  he  will  not  do  aught  hi  word  or  deed 
to  reflect  upon  the  acts  of  those  who  in  the  formative  period  of  modern 
unionism  won  for  him  that  measure  of  economic  freedom  he  may  now 
enjoy. 

Nothing  in  a  sense  can  be  more  typical  of  the  general  spirit  of  labor 
during  this  generation  than  the  address  with  which  President  J.  W. 
SuUivan,  of  the  New  York  City  C.  F.  U.,  welcomed  the  A.  F.  L.  con- 
vention of  1895.  And  nothing  could  be  more  typically  "American" 
in  the  sense  of  the  word  that  calls  to  mind  mushroom  boom  towns, 
Western  boasters,  and  the  push  and  go  of  business  enterprise.  "We  run 
the  largest  local  business  enterprise  in  the  American  continent.  This 
enterprise  is  to  'bull'  our  labor  market.  We  succeed.  We  keep  wages 
up  right  along,  25%  above  the  level  they  would  be  were  employers  to 
have  their  way.  In  some  cases  we  put  them  up  50%.  We  thus  retain 
for  our  own  use  half  a  million  dollars  which  without  our  unions  would 
go  to  enrich  capitalists  and  monopolists.  $26,000,000  a  year!  That's 
our  joint  dividend,  no  less.  We  retain  this  wealth  justly  because  we 
produce  it.  We  retain  it  because  we  have  the  power  to  do  it.  We  are 
well-organized,  well-disciplined,  well-led.  We  boast  therefore  in  our 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  151 

chosen  leaders  the  greatest  Captains  of  Industry  in  this  metropolitan 
center.    Their  equals  in  this  community  can  not  be  named."  1 

This  revelation  may  not  especially  appeal  to  those  today  who  do  not 
find  bulling  any  market  a  particularly  inspiring  act,  yet  it  marks  a 
distinct  epoch  in  labor  history.  The  "same  note,  with  a  greater  emphasis, 
however,  on  the  purposes  for  which  this  process  is  being  carried  on, 
appears  in  a  pamphlet  of  the  early  nineties,  Dyer  D.  Lum's  Philosophy 
of  Trade  Unions.  "The  trade  union  is  a  business,  matter-of-fact  in- 
stitution, responding  to  personal  needs,  living  in  the  present  for  the 
present,  and  not  concerned  about  its  status  in  the  millennium.  Born  of 
the  New,  it  instinctively  opposes  the  Old  Civilization.  .  .  .  Trades 
unions  are  not  system-builders — sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof,  and  tomorrow  will  find  a  new  relief  for  picket-duty.  Self- 
interest  is  not  only  the  fundamental  law  of  our  being,  but  it  is  the  in- 
centive which  has  lifted  man  from  the  animal  into  the  sphere  of  the 
human.  .  .  .  The  present  struggle  for  shorter  days  of  toil  is  not  based 
on  any  sentimental  desire  'for  the  other  fellow/  but  for  self  alone.  We 
want  a  higher  standard  of  living,  and  to  secure  this  self-interest  be- 
comes mutual  interest,  to  wring  from  privilege  a  greater  opportunity.  .  .  . 
Our  selfishness  has  broadened  into  mutualism." 

And  looking  back  upon  the  history  of  the  movement  to  which  he  had 
given  so  much  unselfish  toil  and  of  which  he  could  rightfully  claim  the 
proud  title  of  leader,  Samuel  Gompers  in  1915  epitomized  that  spirit 
when  he  said:  "The  American  Federation  of  Labor  is  guided  by  the  f 
history  of  the  past.  It  draws  lessons  from  history  in  order  to  interpret 
conditions  which  confront  working  people  so  that  it  may  work  along 
the  lines  of  least  resistance  to  accomplish  the  best  results  in  improving 
the  conditions  of  the  working  men,  women,  and  children,  today,  to- 
morrow, and  tomorrow's  tomorrow,  making  each  day  a  better  day  than 
the  one  which  went  before.  This  is  the  guiding  principle,  philosophy, 
and  aim  of  the  labor  movement. 

"  We  do  not  set  any  particular  standard,  but  work  for  the  best  possible 
conditions  immediately  attainable  for  the  workers.  When  these  are 
obtained  then  we  strive  for  better.  The  working  people  will  not  stop 
when  any  particular  point  is  reached;  they  will  never  stop  in  their 
efforts  to  obtain  a  better  life  for  themselves,  for  their  wives,  for  their 
children,  for  all  humanity.  The  object  to  attain  is  complete  social 
justice."  2 

1  A.  F.  L.,  Proceedings,  1895  Convention. 

2  Gompers,  The  American  Labor  Movement,  1915. 


152  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Thus  it  was  that  business  unionism  came  into  the  ascendant  in  the 
American  labor  movement,  and  has  for  some  thirty  years  remained 
fairly  stable  and  permanent.  Yet  there  are  elements  contained  within 
the  very  heart  of  business  unionism  which  as  time  has  gone  on  have 
so  increased  in  importance  that  they  seem  about  to  force  a  readjust- 
ment and  a  realignment  of  forces.  What  these  elements  are  it  shall  be 
the  purpose  of  the  present  analysis  to  bring  out. 

Business  unionism  regards  itself  as  a  great  corporation  which  has  one 
valuable  commodity  to  sell,  the  labor  of  its  members.  This  labor  it  is 
its  aim  to  sell  at  the  highest  possible  price,  a  price  including  not  merely 
money  wages,  but  also  returns  in  shorter  days  and  improved  working 
conditions  in  general.  Thus  the  primary  aim  of  the  business  union  is  to 
engage  in  a  business  transaction  with  the  employer,  and  in  that  trans- 
action to  secure  the  best  possible  terms.  All  other  activities  carried 
on,  though  they  may  also  possess  attractiveness  and  utility  on  their 
own  account,  are  at  bottom  valued  chiefly  as  a  means  toward  the 
attainment  of  strong  bargaining  power.  The  employer  has  on  his  side 
the  power  of  discharging  individuals,  of  depriving  them  of  the  means 
of  securing  a  livelihood;  the  workers  have  the  power  to  withdraw  their 
labor,  and  to  deprive  the  employer  of  the  chance  to  make  profits  on  his 
manufactures.  These  are  the  forces  manipulated  by  the  leaders  on  both 
sides;  the  employer  can  threaten  discharge,  and  can  keep  as  large 
supply  of  labor  available  as  possible,  while  the  worker  can  see  to  it  that 
all  labor  acts  as  a  unit,  and  thus  force  the  employer  to  come  to  his  unioi 
for  his  hands.  Around  this  simple  basis  revolve  nearly  all  of  the  measui 
and  policies  which  have  characterized  the  activities  of  both  capital  anc 
labor  throughout  the  era  of  business  unionism. 

The  situation  thus  closely  resembles  the  armed  peace  which  has  b( 
the  basis  of  international  relations.  In  the  everlasting  jockeying  f< 
position  the  leaders  on  both  sides,  just  as  the  diplomats  of  Europe,  ai 
constantly  demanding  more  and  more  preparedness,  greater  and  greatei 
armies,  more  and  more  powerful  fighting  machines.  Neither  industri< 
leaders  nor  diplomats  actually  desire  conflict;  neither  consider  a  strike 
or  a  war  as  good  in  itself.  Yet  their  whole  strategy  depends  upoi 
being  able  to  threaten  such  conflict,  to  show  that  in  case  it  shoul 
eventuate  they  would  possess  the  advantage;  and  it  cannot  be 
that  either  industrial  leaders  or  diplomats  have  any  profound  antipathy 
to  that  state  of  affairs  which  so  much  occupies  their  thoughts.  Specific 
ally,  the  strike  is  not  valued  in  itself  by  the  leader  of  the  business  unioi 
and  if  he  can  get  what  he  desires  without  it,  he  most  assuredly 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  153 

accept  a  peaceful  settlement  of  the  bargain.  Strikes  are  but  incidents 
in  the  jockeying  for  power;  they  are  entered  upon  by  one  side  or 
the  other,  when  victory  seems  assured,  for  the  sake  of  improving  their 
bargaining  power.  Yet  the  leader  of  a  business  union  would  be  utterly 
at  a  loss  if  he  were  not  assured  that,  even  though  he  never  need  to  strike, 
back  of  him  there  lay  the  power  of  the  organized  workers;  just  as  in  the 
war  of  steel  and  gold  no  diplomat  of  China  or  of  Peru,  however  astute, 
can  hope  to  secure  great  advantages  for  his  country.  What  the  worker 
has  won,  he  has  perhaps  won  justly;  but  he  has  won  it,  not  because  his 
demands  were  just,  but  because  he  had  the  power  to  enforce  them.  This 
truth,  albeit  subject  to  considerable  limitations,  has  been  at  once  the 
basis  and  the  lesson  of  business  unionism,  indelibly  burned  into  the 
mind  of  the  worker  through  long  years  of  bitter  struggle. 

The  aim  of  the  business  union,  to  attain  a  strong  bargaining  power, 
to  become  a  fighting  machine  that  can  be  used  by  its  leaders  to 
enforce  its  demands,  has  naturally  called  into  being  a  type  and  struc- 
ture of  organization  admirably  suited  to  just  that  purpose.  This  aim 
implies  a  well-disciplined  army  that  can  be  called  upon  to  act  as  a  unit — 
when  necessary,  to  fight,  when  necessary,  to  preserve  the  peace  and  keep 
its  agreements,  and  to  be  ready  at  all  times  to  enforce  a  diplomatic 
victory  through  action  on  the  economic  field.  This  function  to  which 
business  unionism  has  adapted  itself  has  determined  the  relations  which 
obtain  within  the  union  group,  and  has  raised  the  old  problem  of  dem- 
ocratic control  versus  efficiency  of  action.  For  the  same  body  of  workers 
who  must  serve  as  the  disciplined  army  is  also  the  body  that  has  for- 
mulated the  demands  and  that  stands  to  win  or  lose  in  the  conflict. 
There  is  thus  a  constantly  recurring  struggle  between  the  forces  of 
discipline  and  authority  and  the  popular  will,  a  conflict  punctuated  by 
the  insurgence  of  the  rank  and  file  and  the  installation  of  new  and  more 
responsive  leaders.  Nevertheless,  as  will  be  seen,  it  does  not  appear 
that  on  the  premises  of  business  unionism  any  permanent  solution  to 
this  problem  can  be  found — assuredly  none  has  yet  been  discovered — 
and  this  is  one  of  the  factors  which  bodes  ill  for  the  permanence  of 
business  unionism  as  a  type.  It  seems  impossible  to  reconcile  demo- 
cratic control  with  any  kind  of  army. 

To  lead  such  an  army  as  the  typical  business  union  presents  there 
have  naturally  come  to  the  front  leaders  peculiarly  fitted  by  nature  and 
temperament  to  perform  the  functions  required  of  them.  Thus  it  is 
manifestly  impossible  to  form  a  correct  judgment  as  to  the  real  desires 
and  aims,  the  real  wishes  of  the  workers  from  a  consideration  of  the 


154  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

type  of  leaders  who  are  developed,  and  to  judge  the  purposes  of  the 
entire  group  by  those  of  the  captains.  The  function,  not  the  free  desires 
of  the  workers,  has  led  to  the  survival  of  a  certain  type;  and  the  whole 
purport  of  this  volume  has  been  to  maintain  that  the  function  depends 
quite  as  much  upon  the  industrial  structure  and  upon  the  aims  of  the 
employers  and  of  society  in  general,  in  short,  upon  factors  hitherto 
quite  beyond  the  workers'  control,  as  upon  the  desires  of  the  workers 
themselves. 

To  lead  an  army,  to  haggle  with  powerful  employers  on  the  basis  of 
threats  of  force,  requires  an  aggressive  leader,  a  close  bargainer,  a  shrewd 
diplomat,  a  dominating  personality,  capable  and  perhaps  quite  fond  of 
exercising  personal  authority — in  a  word,  it  requires  a  man  remarkably 
similar  to  those  captains  of  industry  who  by  their  exercise  of  the  same 
qualities  have  elevated  themselves  in  the  industrial  struggle.  To  the 
qualities  necessary  to  wrest  a  fortune  from  nature  with  one  hand  while 
fighting  off  one's  fellows  with  the  other,  however,  the  leader  of  the 
business  union  must  add  a  facility  in  oratory  and  persuasion,  a  talent 
for  winning  the  support  of  the  workers  and  their  personal  loyalty;  he 
must  approximate  those  arts  by  which  the  politician  appeals  for  public 
approval.  Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  labor  history  reveals  some 
leaders  who  have  forsaken  the  workers  for  the  business  game,  or  who 
have  become  politicians  and  aspirants  for  public  office;  nor  that  the 
desire  to  lead  their  fellows  to  victory  at  the  polls  should  always  appeal 
more  strongly  to  the  leaders  than  to  the  rank  and  file.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  some  leaders  have  even  conformed  to  the  type  of  the 
despised  "demagogue,"  and  have  sought  their  own  advantage  rather 
than  that  of  their  men.  The  genuine  cases  of  such  action  have,  of  course, 
been  seized  upon  by  the  employer  as  typical  of  the  whole  number,  and 
nothing  is  more  common  than  for  our  press  to  treat  the  labor  leader  and 
the  "self-seeking  agitator"  as  synonymous  terms.  It  would  be  unkind 
to  suggest  that  possibly  the  employer,  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  the 
motive  of  disinterested  service  to  one's  fellows,  interprets  the  state  of 
mind  of  the  labor  leader  on  lines  smilar  to  that  of  his  own,  and  being 
out  to  win  for  himself  at  all  costs  naturally  supposes  that  all  other  men 
would  do  what  he  would  do  in  their  places;  it  would  be  cruel  to  question 
whether  possibly  those  labor-leaders  whom  he  regards  as  "good"  and 
moderate  and  fair-minded  might  not  possibly  be  those  who  had  proved 
themselves  most  susceptible  to  official  flattery  and  promises  of  private 
advancement.  Taking  all  these  factors  into  consideration,  we  may 
hazard  the  opinion  that  the  small  number  of  genuine  demagogues  and 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  155 

the  great  majority  of  disinterested  leaders  and  patient  self-sacrificing 
personalities  to  be  found  at  the  head  of  the  labor  movement  is  a  real 
tribute  to  the  persistence  of  the  social  idealism  to  be  found  therein.  Nor 
must  we  forget  that  all  labor  leaders  are  ultimately  responsible  to  the 
workers  whose  representatives  they  are,  and  that  no  one  is  quicker  than 
the  worker  to  detect  sham  and  trickery  and  any  trace  of  disloyalty.  It 
is  true  that  occasionally  a  union  will  keep  in  power  a  man  who  has  been 
proved  venal;  but  no  such  man,  however  useful  he  may  be  as  a  military 
leader,  receives  any  personal  respect  or  loyalty  from  his  union.  And 
how  many  large  corporations  can  with  a  clear  conscience  deny  the  im- 
putation of  any  trickery  in  their  own  counsels?  The  business  union,  we 
must  remember,  is  proud  of  being  an  American  business  organization. 

But  after  all  it  is  never  the  dishonest  and  insincere  who  merit  the 
honor  of  condemnation;  it  is  the  sincere  man  who  is  mistaken  and 
wrong.  Those  workers  most  opposed  to  the  policies  of  some  of  the 
present  leaders  of  the  Federation  do  not  question  their  sincere  attach- 
ment to  the  interests  of  their  fellow- workers  as  they  see  them.  They 
claim  rather  that  the  function  which  the  business  union  performs  has 
tended  to  develop  leaders  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  conditions  amidst 
which  the  business  union  was  generated,  and  that  now  that  these  con- 
ditions have  been  considerably  altered  those  leaders  are  by  inertia  of 
office  continued  in  power  when  they  might,  with  greater  advantage  to 
the  workers,  be  replaced  by  other  and  younger  men  who  would  be  more 
responsive  to  new  situations.  It  is  in  fact  incontestable  that  many 
leaders  of  the  Federation  and  of  some  of  its  unions  are  "war  horses," 
men  who  have  grown  grey  in  the  service  of  their  fellows,  trained  in  the 
bitter  struggles  of  industrial  warfare,  habituated  to  certain  types  of 
activity  and  policy  and  unable  to  visualize  any  other  state  of  affairs 
than  that  in  which  the  fighting  of  their  younger  days  has  been  spent. 
They  are,  claim  the  younger  men,  victims  of  a  war-psychology  which 
makes  them  unable  to  imagine  a  state  of  peace  or  the  policies  necessary 
to  one. 

Such  leaders  are  continued  in  office  largely  from  a  sense  of  personal 
loyalty  and  obligation;  it  would  be  shameful  to  turn  out  a  man  who  had 
given  his  best  years  to  the  service  of  his  fellows  when  he  might  have  risen 
high  in  the  industrial  world.  And  quite  naturally  they  use  the  large 
powers  which  the  constitutions  of  most  unions  give  them  to  further  those 
policies  which  they  feel  to  be  best  and  to  keep  down  and  suppress  those 
workers  who  they  feel  are  foolishly  counseling  courses  which  cannot  but 
result  in  harm  to  themselves  and  their  fellows.  It  is  but  little  wonder 


1 56  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

that  Mr.  Gompers,  whose  early  associates  were  Marxians,  who  spent 
years  struggling  against  the  desires  of  his  small  body  of  followers  to  break 
into  the  political  field,  who  sees  the  American  labor  movement  at  its 
present  strength  largely  as  a  result  of  just  such  wisdom,  should  look  with 
disfavor  upon  efforts  to  form  a  distinct  labor  party,  even  though  it  might 
well  be  that  the  very  growth  of  organized  labor  and  other  industrial 
changes  had  materially  altered  the  situation.  Moreover,  a  labor  leader 
is  not  and  cannot  be  an  actual  worker  at  the  bench  or  in  the  shop ;  he  is 
somewhat  elevated  above  the  level  of  the  men  who  have  to  struggle  for 
their  daily  bread,  and  while  this  eminence  undoubtedly  gives  a  broader 
view  and  a  more  philosophic  outlook  upon  society  as  a  whole,  it  at  the 
same  time  necessarily  causes  the  loss  of  some  of  that  sympathetic  insight 
into  what  are  the  basic  desires  and  aspirations  of  the  workers'  hearts. 
The  responsibility  of  an  executive  position  rather  dampens  the  desire  of 
the  young  worker  to  rush  into  battle  and  hazard  all  on  one  chance ;  the 
leader  is  apt  to  have  a  tremendous  respect  for  the  power  of  his  capitalist 
opponents,  and  to  tend  to  overestimate  rather  than  to  underestimate  the 
weakness  of  his  own  side. 

All  of  these  considerations  will  serve,  for  example,  to  explain  the 
conduct  of  the  officials  of  the  Amalgamated  Association  of  Iron,  Steel, 
and  Tin  workers,  whose  action,  or  rather  whose  lack  of  activity,  was  the 
immediate  cause  of  the  failure  of  the  great  steel  strike  of  iQig.1  Their 
experience  had  included  probably  the  bitterest  struggle  which  has  ever 
been  waged  in  between  organized  labor  and  organized  capital,  and  they 
displayed  the  results  in  their  most  extreme  form. 

With  this  type  of  leader  developed  through  the  natural  demands  of 
business  unionism,  the  business  union  has  not  really  known  what  to  do 
with  the  accretions  of  power  which  have  constantly  been  coming  to  it. 
It  is  rapidly  approaching  the  time  when  it  will  hold  within  its  hands  the 
power  to  determine  general  social  policies,  if  indeed  it  does  not  already  do 
so;  in  an  industrial  country  like  England  it  is  the  great  unions  which  seem 
to  be  the  seats  of  real  political  authority  in  those  matters  in  which  they 
care  to  intervene.  The  British  trade  unions  decide  on  matters  of  foreign 
policy,  and  Lloyd  George  wisely  decides  to  adopt  the  same  course.  At 
the  Spa  conference,  in  July,  1920,  it  is  significant  to  note,  it  was  neither 
the  skillful  arguments  of  Herr  von  Simon,  the  diplomat  and  politician, 
nor  the  economic  reasoning  of  Herr  Stinnes  the  coal  king,  but  the  blunt 
ultimatum  of  Herr  Hue,  the  leader  of  the  coal  miners  which  had  final 
weight  with  the  Allies.  This  growing  power  of  organized  labor  is  no- 
1 W.  Z.  Foster,  The  Great  Steel  Strike. 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  157 

where  realized,  least  of  ail  by  the  leaders  of  business  unionism  in  America. 
They  have  been  trained  in  but  one  field,  and  as  their  weapon  grows  in 
power  and  range  they  do  not  know  how  to  use  it  in  any  other.  It  is  as 
though  the  President  of  Switzerland,  in  the  midst  of  vexatious  boundary 
disputes  with  Italy,  should  suddenly  find  at  his  disposal  the  combined 
armies  of  Russia  and  Germany.  Small  wonder  if  under  such  circum- 
stances he  persisted  in  annexing  Italian  territory,  even  though  in  so  doing 
he  precipitated  a  world  cataclysm.  The  business  leader  instinctively  pre- 
serves the  rules  of  the  game  he  is  playing,  but  with  his  added  power  he 
plays  it  to  the  very  limit — he  is  conservative  in  that  he  does  not  desire  to 
alter  the  general  economic  structure,  but  he  is  ready  to  press  more  and 
more  exhorbitant  demands  which  cannot  but  eventuate  in  the  economic 
change  he  deprecates. 

Such  is  the  typical  leader  of  a  business  union.  The  type  of  group 
relation  developed  is  quite  suited  to  him;  it  is  that  type  we  have  already 
noticed  as  characteristic  of  American  institutions  and  as  dominant  in 
American  business  organization,  the  responsible  executive  relation.  It 
implies  leaders  with  large  powers  of  discretion  and  of  action,  but  equally 
weighted  with  the  burden  of  heavy  personal  responsibility.  Pick  a  man 
and  give  him  full  control,  carry  your  union  card  and  pay  your  dues;  but 
let  him  know  that  if  he  fails  to  deliver  the  goods  he  will  be  ruthlessly  dis- 
carded. This  is  the  pioneer,  the  fighting  type  of  organization;  and 
competitive  business  is  essentially  of  a  fighting  nature.  It  is  the  Andrew 
Jackson  type,  the  tribune  of  the  people;  it  underlies  the  popular  move- 
ments for  the  commission  form  of  government,  for  the  short  ballot  with 
executive  appointments,  for  the  recall  of  elected  officials,  for  the  replace- 
ment of  judicial  officers  with  commissioners  endowed  with  great  discre- 
tionary powers, — in  a  word,  it  is  that  theory  of  government  which  Roose- 
velt represented  and  which  goes  under  the  general  name  of  "progressive." 
And  the  world  has  but  just  been  treated  to  a  supreme  example  of  the  way 
in  which  America  rejects  those  who  after  accepting  authority  and  respon- 
sibility fail  to  live  up  to  their  promises,  in  the  person  of  her  Chief  Execu- 
tive himself.  President  Wilson's  largely  personal  rule  was  quite  in  accord 
with  the  principles  of  American  progressivism,  or  responsible  executivism; 
and  had  he  succeeded  the  country  would  have  resounded  with  his  praises. 
But  for  divers  reasons  he  failed,  and  seemingly  no  one  is  too  poor  to  add  to 
his  opprobrium.  Indeed,  the  fate  of  President  Wilson,  great  as  he  is, 
might  suggest  to  the  critic  the  limitations  of  the  theory  upon  which  he 
acted. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  this  is  the  type  of  internal  relation  which  has 


158  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

obtained  in  business  unionism:  a  willing  obedience  so  long  as  the  leader 
got  what  the  workers  demanded  of  him,  an  angry  revolt  when  he  failed. 
The  first  result  of  this  policy  is  that  the  leader  strives  earnestly  to  get 
what  the  workers  want;  and  the  second  is  that  he  is  quite  apt  to  use  all  of 
his  powers  of  persuasion  to  make  them  want  what  he  can  get.  Particu- 
larly in  times  of  transition,  when  perhaps  a  large  minority  seriously 
questions  the  aims  of  the  leader,  he  is  prone  to  pursue  those  aims  all  the 
more  vigorously,  just  as  the  reply  of  the  leaders  of  Germany  during  the 
war  to  those  who  questioned  whether  peace  might  not  be  preferable  to 
conquest  was  to  pursue  with  increased  vigor  a  policy  of  military  con- 
quest. It  is  much  easier  to  engineer  a  strike  for  increased  wages  than  to 
elaborate  all  the  tiresome  details  of  a  real  plan  of  social  reconstruction,  or 
even  of  permanent  collective  bargaining,  just  as  it  is  much  easier  to 
secure  peace  with  victory  than  a  real  league  of  nations. 

To  the  executives  thus  elected  to  carry  out  their  demands  the  workers 
entrust  great  power  over  the  formulation  of  policy,  and  even  greater 
powers  of  influencing  public  opinion  have  been  assumed.  In  the  matter 
of  collective  bargaining,  the  leaders  have  almost  a  free  hand;  in  the  vital 
matter  of  strikes,  it  is  usual  to  entrust  to  them  the  power  both  to  call  and 
to  end  them.  Most  unions  indeed  require  a  strike  vote  to  be  taken  before 
a  strike  can  be  called;  but  no  strike  benefits  can  be  obtained,  which  means 
that  no  strike  can  be  successful,  if  the  president  and  the  executive  com- 
mittee do  not  approve,  while  it  is  customary  to  vote  for  a  strike  and  leave 
the  declaration  to  the  president  when  he  may  judge  the  time  to  be  ripe. 
And  in  most  of  the  older  unions,  such  as  the  railroad  brotherhoods,  the 
president  can  order  men  back  to  work  at  his  own  discretion.  As  a  result, 
once  a  strike  has  received  general  approbation  the  matter  has  definitely 
left  the  hands  of  the  workers  and  depends  almost  entirely  upon  the 
wisdom  of  their  leaders;  the  army,  resolved  upon  war,  divests  itself  of  its 
democratic  control,  and  loyally  submits  to  the  will  of  its  captains. 

Moreover,  the  officers  enjoy  considerable  power  over  the  conventions 
through  their  ability  to  decide  upon  the  eligibility  of  delegates  and  to 
exclude  those  from  locals  which  they  can  declare,  for  financial  or  other 
reasons,  not  to  be  in  good  standing.  This  furnishes  a  convenient  method 
for  getting  rid  of  men  who  may  possibly  cause  trouble  on  the  convention 
floor;  it  was  used  at  ftie  Nashville  convention  of  the  United  Garment 
Workers,  and  resulted  in  the  withdrawal  of  the  excluded  delegates  and  the 
formation  of  a  new  union.  The  executive  committee,  usually  made  up  of 
men  of  the  type  described,  can  generally  revoke  the  charter  of  any  local 
which  it  disapproves,  particularly  in  case  of  an  unauthorized  strike.  -Be- 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  159 

sides  this  direct  power,  it  is  the  custom  to  send  as  delegates  to  the  conven- 
tions and  to  the  A.  F.  L.  conventions  the  officers  and  leaders  of  the  local 
unions,  from  motives  of  loyalty  and  of  habit;  and  these  are  apt  to  form  a 
willing  support  for  the  officials  and  to  crush  any  opposition  from  the 
younger  and  newer  men.  Moreover  the  elaborate  systems  of  benefits 
most  business  unions  have  built  up,  generally  with  the  conscious  inten- 
tion of  strengthening  the  organization  and  holding  the  membership  to- 
gether in  unfavorable  times,  are  only  too  successful  in  accomplishing  their 
purpose,  and  in  preventing  action  on  the  part  of  locals  which  might  meet 
with  opposition  from  headquarters.  The  radical  worker  derides  such 
unions  as  "coffin  societies,"  and  will  have  in  his  organization  no  stabiliz- 
ing benefits;  but  he  pays  the  penalty  in  shifting  and  temporary  member- 
ship, and  has  to  resort  to  constant  strikes  to  hold  any  men  at  all. 

In  spite  of  this  great  power  exercised  by  the  officers  over  the  members 
of  the  union,  in  large  part  perhaps  because  of  it,  there  is  a  constant 
struggle  going  on  between  the  leaders  backed  up  by  the  older  and  less 
aggressive  members,  and  the  younger  and  more  active  "rank  and  file,"  a 
struggle  which  has  become  more  and  more  acute  with  the  growth  of  a  new 
spirit  and  a  longing  for  new  methods  and  measures  among  the  latter. 
Periodic  revolts  and  the  election  to  office  of  the  leaders  of  the  opposition 
are  common  occurrences;  yet  it  is  no  less  common  for  the  new  leaders  soon 
to  become  as  conservative  as  the  old  ones,  and  with  office  to  assume  the 
vices  of  authority.  A  case  in  point  is  the  International  Association  of 
Machinists,  of  which  the  present  (1920)  administration,  elected  as  radicals 
over  the  "conservative"  incumbents,  are  now  being  themselves  assailed 
by  a  large  minority,  which  in  many  locals  is  a  majority,  as  too  conserva- 
tive. It  appears  exceedingly  hard  in  one  man  to  unite  the  qualities  of  a 
successful  general  and  strategist  and  a  humble  representative  of  the 
wishes  of  the  majority;  only  exceptional  individuals  like  Sidney  Hillman 
seem  able  to  do  it. 

If  one  is  led  to  the  comparison  of  a  great  army  by  the  type  of  leader 
which  business  unionism  elevates  to  power,  and  by  the  relations  which  he 
enjoys  with  the  group,  the  analogy  becomes  irresistible  when  one  con- 
templates the  men  themselves  and  their  spirit  of  group  solidarity.  The 
success  of  an  army  depends  fundamentally  upon  that  elusive  something, 
its  morale;  upon  the  amount  of  cohesion  and  unity  and  fixity  of  purpose 
which  it  displays,  the  amount  of  whole-hearted  cooperation  and  mutual 
confidence  and  trust  which  permeate  its  members.  Similarly  the  success 
of  a  business  union  depends  upon  the  amount  of  group  cohesion  and 
solidarity.  And  this  spirit,  this  morale,  can  be  developed,  just  as  in  an 


160  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

army,  through  two  radically  different  policies:  through  the  authority 
and  the  external  discipline  of  the  central  organization,  and  through  the 
subtler  and  more  elusive  spontaneous  spirit  coming  from  the  whole 
membership. 

The  first  method,  that  of  authority  and  external  discipline,  has  been 
often  tried  by  labor  leaders;  it  is  perhaps  natural  to  the  dominant  type 
of  personality  which  we  have  seen  emerges  in  the  business  union.  Hence 
we  have  seen  how  the  business  union  has  developed  an  elaborate  ma- 
chinery well  fitted  for  giving  those  in  power  control  over  the  policies 
and  the  opinions  of  the  members,  and  methods  of  securing  support  from 
every  local.  The  disciplining  of  unruly  members,  outlawry  and  ex- 
pulsion, the  revocation  of  the  charter  of  a  local  which  will  not  agree 
with  the  others  or  the  president,  or  its  suspension,  refusal  to  allow  its 
delegates  a  voice  in  convention,  treatment  of  members  not  in  good 
standing  as  scabs  with  no  rights,  exclusion  from  closed  shops, — all  those 
methods  built  up  to  protect  the  union  worker  against  the  lower  stan- 
dard of  the  non-union  man  which  can  be  turned  against  an  unruly  mem- 
ber of  the  group — these  and  many  other  methods  are  employed  by  the 
leaders  to  secure  solidarity  and  discipline.  Revolt  of  a  large  number 
and  the  formation  of  a  new  union  is  seldom  resorted  to,  since  it  gives 
too  excellent  a  chance  to  the  employer  to  play  one  union  off  against 
the  other  and  profit  by  the  division  amongst  the  workers.  This  was 
tried  in  the  mines  of  the  West  between  the  A.  F.  L.  and  the  Western 
Federation  of  Miners  when  it  was  affiliated  with  the  I.  W.  W.,  and  has 
recently  been  resorted  to  by  employers  in  the  split  between  the  Amal- 
gamated Clothing  Workers  and  the  United  Garment  Workers,  an  in- 
significant A.  F.  L.  organization.  The  length  to  which  the  leaders  of 
business  unionism  will  go  to  endeavor  to  enforce  discipline  was  shown 
in  the  outlaw  railroad  strike  of  the  spring  of  1920,  when  Mr.  W.  G.  Lee 
of  the  Trainmen  actually  united  with  the  employers  to  call  for  an  in- 
junction against  the  men  he  claimed  to  represent,  and  suspended  many 
locals  with  thousands  of  members. 

Yet  despite  all  this  machinery  of  authority  and  discipline,  in  time 
of  real  crisis  the  officers  discover  how  powerless  they  are  to  force  co- 
hesion on  their  men  from  above.  When  a  local  has  been  strong  enough 
to  develop  a  system  of  strike  benefits  of  its  own,  as  many  of  the  large 
and  radical  locals  have  done  with  precisely  this  end  in  view,  it  can 
safely  defy  its  national  officials  and  disregard  their  frantic  efforts  to 
remain  in  control  of  the  situation.  This  has  been  well  evidenced  in  the 
series  of  so-called  "outlaw"  or  unauthorized  strikes  following  the  arm- 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  161 

istice,  in  which  the  rank  and  file  revolted  against  leaders  who  no  longer 
represented  their  own  aspirations,  and  struck  on  their  own  accord. 

The  longshoremen,  the  printers,  the  coal-miners,  the  railroad  work- 
ers, to  name  but  the  most  prominent,  were  able  to  revolt  with  impunity, 
even  in  the  highly  disciplined  railroad  brotherhoods,  for  they  well  knew 
that  no  officer  would  long  allow  to  remain  outside  of  his  union  such 
large  and  essential  bodies  of  the  workers  in  the  industry.  For  labor 
leaders  with  no  one  to  lead  make  a  sad  and  sorry  spectacle,  and  many 
an  officer  who  would  otherwise  be  tempted  to  get  rid  of  unruly  followers 
is  reminded  that  after  all  he  owes  his  position  solely  to  the  fact  that  he 
represents  the  workers  who  retain  him  to  look  out  for  their  interests. 
Moreover,  when  locals  are  expelled  from  their  national  body  and  from 
the  A.  F.  L.  the  state  and  city  federations  are  quite  apt  to  disregard 
this  action  entirely  and  extend  aid  and  fellowship  to  those  whose  dis- 
grace they  well  know  will  be  but  temporary. 

No,  morale,  'in  a  union  as  in  an  army,  is  hardly  to  be  forced  from 
above.  No^methods  of  German  discipline  were  able  to  restore  the  lost 
morale  of  the  Austrian  troops  in  the  last  years  of  the  war;  no  policies 
of  discipline  and  expulsion  are  going  to  develop  that  solidarity  of  labor 
upon  which  the  ultimate  success  of  its  aims  depends.  The  morale  of 
a  labor  organization  is  a  natural  and  spontaneous  outgrowth  of  the 
unity  of  purpose  and  the  community  of  interests  which  binds  all  the 
workers  together  against  their  common  antagonist.  No  army,  unless 
it  be  an  army  fighting  to  defend  its  very  hearth  and  families  from  the 
desecrating  invader,  can  equal  the  solidarity  and  group-mindness  of 
the  labor  union.  Where  the  aim  is  such  as  all  the  members  instinct- 
ively recognize  to  be  their  own,  there  is  no  need  of  any  external  dis- 
cipline; so  powerful  is  the  social  impulse  even  among  the  despised  and 
unlettered  " foreigners"  and  "hunkies"  that  they  would  no  more  think 
of  preferring  their  immediate  private  advantage  to  the  good  of  the 
group,  and  of  proving  traitor  to  the  confidence  placed  in  them,  than 
the  soldier  would  of  deserting  to  the  enemy  for  increased  pay.  When, 
as  in  the  recent  steel  strike,  the  issue  is  clear  beyond  peradventure  of 
doubt,  Republican  and  Socialist,  craft  unionist  and  industrialist,  A. 
F.  L.  leader  and  Sidney  Hillman,  join  against  the  common  foe  and  share 
their  money  and  their  strength.  It  is  such  experiences,  such  waves  of 
sympathy  transcending  the  ordinary  limitations  of  petty  quarrels,  that 
make  many  workers  believe  that  even  an  unsuccessful  strike  is  of  in- 
estimable advantage  to  the  labor  movement — and  thus  pave  the  way 
for  the  transformation  of  business  unionism.  That  individual  respon- 


162  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

sibility  for  the  welfare  of  the  group,  that  moral  indignation  at  the  traitor 
or  scab,  which  business  unionism  calls  forth  for  its  own  fighting  pur- 
poses, is  so  strong  that  it  is  futile  to  attempt  to  restrain  it  or  hold  it 
within  bonds.  It  is  sweeping  business  unionism  irresisibly  along  to- 
wards something  far  broader  and  more  inclusive. 

In  brief,  it  can  be  said  that  the  business  union  displays  all  of  the 
military  virtues,  loyalty,  comradeship,  courage,  mutual  sympathy  and 
aid,  and,  it  must  be  added,  many  of  the  military  vices.  It  is  at  bottom 
an  army,  an  army  which  gives  orders  to  its  leaders  and  follows  those 
leaders  so  long  as  they  lead  it  to  victory  and  no  longer. 

Even  such  a  cursory  survey  of  the  type  of  relations  obtaining  within 
the  business  union  reveals  the  essential  instability  of  its  general  status, 
and  the  elements  that  are  at  work  in  its  very  heart  bidding  fair  to  trans- 
form it  into  something  else.  The  business  union  in  accordance  with 
its  function  tends  to  assume  the  structure  of  the  compact  and  well- 
disciplined  army;  yet  the  business  union  is  vastly  more  than  an  army,  it 
is  a  body  of  men  seeking  greater  freedom  and  greater  opportunity, 
banded  together  to  help  one  another  in  their  quest.  Its  leaders,  its  aims, 
its  methods,  are  all  ultimately  determined  by  the  rank  and  file.  The 
motive  of  self-interest  alone  might  counsel  the  perfect  development  of 
the  army,  but  the  motive  of  social  idealism,  fostered  and  strengthened 
by  the  development  of  those  very  virtues  necessary  to  the  army's 
success,  comes  into  conflict  again  and  again  with  the  strictly  military 
organization;  and  on  such  occasions  it  is  not  the  motive  of  social  idealism 
that  gives  way. 

There  is  thus  at  the  present  time  a  marked  tendency  away  from 
excessive  centralization  to  a  more  democratic  control,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  shift  in  emphasis  from  the  fighting  function  of  business  unionism 
to  a  function  more  directly  applicable  to  the  industrial  structure.  The 
type  of  labor  leader  now  in  the  ascendent  is  not  the  type  made  promi- 
nent by  the  fights  of  the  nineties;  that  generation  has  for  the  most  part 
passed  away.  The  J.  W.  Sullivan  who  boasted  of  bulling  the  labor 
market  would  not  be  received  today  with  loud  applause  by  any  union. 
Leaders  are  coming  to  regard  themselves  as  the  representatives  and 
spokesmen  of  their  men,  not  as  their  rulers.  The  work  of  officers  in 
former  days  was  largely  to  organize  and  create  their  union,  but  now 
that  unions  are  large  and  flourishing  and  the  founders  have  disappeared 
from  the  scene  the  sense  of  proprietorship  or  paternal  regard  has  vanished. 
The  old  convention,  held  once  a  year  to  give  the  successful  organizer 
backing  and  popularity,  the  convention  that  was  often  hand-picked  by 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  163 

the  president,  is  in  most  unions  becoming  more  and  more  infrequent. 
This  tendency  is  well  typified  in  the  Firemen,  which  held  annual  con- 
ventions from  1873  to  1888,  then  changed  to  biennial  conventions,  and  in 
1910,  shifted  to  triennial  ones.  Some  unions  have  not  held  a  convention 
for  twenty  years.  The  legislative  function  is  at  the  same  time  vested  in 
the  entire  membership,  who  have  a  referendum  on  all  important  ques- 
tions and  in  some  cases  elect  their  officers  directly.  New  measures  are 
introduced  by  individual  locals,  and  thus  cannot  be  railroaded  off  the 
convention  floor.  Those  leaders  who  have  not  recognized  the  coming 
of  the  new  day  have  been  suddenly  enlightened  by  the  revolt  of  the 
rank  and  file,  and,  in  most  cases,  they  have  come  to  realize  the  necessity 
of  voicing  the  aspirations  of  the  workers  if  they  are  to  retain  their  posi- 
tions of  leadership.  The  development,  under  various  names,  of  shop 
committees,  with  its  consequent  bringing  of  unionism  nearer  to  the 
atmosphere  of  the  daily  toil,  has  been  influential  in  a  more  democratic 
direction.  And  finally  the  so-called  "new  unionism"  of  the  garment 
trades,  which  arose  as  a  revolt  against  all  those  features  in  business 
unionism  which  were  least  democratic  and  least  adaptable  to  the  general 
sense  of  social  idealism,  is  by  its  example  exerting  a  powerful  influence 
in  favor  of  control  directly  by  the  workers  of  all  union -matters,  and  the 
development  in  the  workers  of  the  power  and  ability  to  handle  success- 
fully even  larger  questions. 

Coincident  with  this  shift  away  from  the  exclusively  military  organi- 
zation is  a  tendency  towards  relinquishing  the  purely  military  aim  of 
business  unionism.  The  industrial  organizations  against  which  war 
must  be  waged  are  constantly  extending  their  sphere  of  influence,  and 
the  organization  of  employers  is  proceeding  with  great  rapidity.  Thus 
self-interest  dictates  an  ever  widening  and  ever  more  inclusive  organ- 
ization, while  the  spirit  of  class  solidarity  is  every  day  receiving  new  im- 
petus. It  is  characteristic  of  the  labor  movement  that  the  change  from 
craft  to  industrial  unionism  is  urged  not  only  by  strategic  necessity,  but 
also  by  the  ever  widening  area  of  cooperation  and  loyalty.  And  the 
resulting  industrialization  of  the  business  union  makes  possible  a  func- 
tion which  the  old  union  never  contemplated  and  could  not  have  ac- 
complished if  it  had,  the  development  of  more  and  more  of  actual  control 
over  the  operations  of  the  industry  itself.  It  is  perhaps  too  early  to 
hazard  a  prediction,  but  recent  events  and  tendencies  seem  to  point  to 
a  gradual  shifting  of  stress  from  primary  interest  in  fighting  to  secure 
higher  profits  on  the  sale  of  labor — the  business  motive — to  interest  in 
problems  of  industrial  function  and  production,  in  the  actual  control  of 


1 64  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  industry.  Many  unions  have  become  interested  in  educational 
problems  along  industrial  lines,  and  are  desirous  of  replacing  the  present 
chaotic  system  of  new  workers  by  some  plan  which  will  insure  greater 
skill.  Some  have  gone  so  far  as  to  envisage  the  necessity  of  training 
their  workers  for  the  assumption  of  more  and  more  responsibility  as  they 
are  given  larger  and  larger  shares  of  control  over  industrial  conditions. 
One  can  even  see  traces  of  the  development  of  a  new  type  of  leader — 
the  industrial  expert,  not  the  mere  fighter,  the  man  who  can  discuss 
with  coal  operators  the  complex  problems  of  coal  production  and  dis- 
tribution, or  with  railroad  managers  the  best  methods  of  efficient  oper- 
ation, or  with  clothing  manufacturers  the  means  of  getting  rid  of  the 
seasonal  nature  of  that  industry  to  insure  steady  production.  The 
miners,  the  railroad  men,  and  the  clothing  workers  have  already  secured 
the  services  of  such  experts.  And  with  the  new  leader  is  coming  a  new 
organization — for  fulfilling  industrial  function,  not  merely  for  bargain- 
ing power  alone.  But  the  most  significant  factor  about  this  new  tendency 
is  that  it  does  not  involve,  as  all  such  more  social  and  productive  ten- 
dencies, like,  for  instance,  the  cooperation  of  the  sixties,  did  in  the  past, 
the  abandonment  of  trade  unionism,  the  turning  away  from  tried  and 
successful  methods,  the  suppression  of  the  root  instinct  of  the  labor 
movement,  the  desire  for  immediate  improvement  of  status;  but  that  it 
is  the  natural  outgrowth  of  the  normal  and  almost  inevitable  develop- 
ment of  business  unionism  itself.  As  we  shall  later,  as  labor  organiza- 
tion grows  more  and  more  complete,  such  a  transformation  seems  bound 
to  follow,  and  nothing  short  of  an  almost  unthinkable  eradication  of 
the  labor  movement  itself  seems  to  stop  it.  As  the  propounders  of  the 
Plumb  plan  said,  such  developments  seem  the  only  possible  policy  from 
a  business  standpoint. 

Of  course,  such  a  development  will  be  very  slow,  and  may  very  likely 
be  influenced  in  its  course  by  other  and  at  present  unforeseen  factors. 
For  instance,  if  the  employers  unite  to  crush  the  labor  movement,  and 
follow  the  lead  of  the  Steel  Corporation  in  their  anti-labor  policy,  the 
union  will  be  forced  back  into  a  purely  military  organization,  and  all 
considerations  will  have  to  give  way  to  those  of  fighting  strength.  There 
are  certainly  very  few  industries  today  where  the  workers  are  in  any 
degree  fitted  to  assume  any  great  share  of  control  of  the  larger  aspects 
of  the  business.  Yet  that  growth  of  knowledge  of  the  processes  of  pro- 
duction is  not  utterly  remote;  the  modern  movement  among  employers 
to  give  a  large  amount  of  shop  autonomy,  undertaken  at  -the  behest  of 
efficiency  engineers  with  a  view  to  increased  production,  will  undoubtedly 


Business  Unionism — Relations  within  the  Group  165 

greatly  hasten  the  development  of  a  sense  of  responsibility.  In  fact, 
the  double  strain,  by  no  means  confined  to  the  workers,  is  bound  to 
operate  in  the  future  increasingly  on  the  side  of  the  employers  also;  and 
in  some  such  cooperation  as  seems  to  be  approaching  in  England  it  is 
probable  that  the  new  unionism  will  develop — cooperation  forced  by 
the  power  of  labor,  but  at  the  same  time  voluntarily  accepted  by  the 
employer.  Nor  have  recent  experiences  tended  wholly  to  confirm  the 
traditional  belief  in  the  superhuman  sagacity  and  efficiency  of  the  Ameri- 
can business  man,  which  would  make  his  replacement  impossible.  How 
long  it  may  take,  no  one  can  tell;  but  that  sooner  or  later  some  such 
state  of  affairs  will  come  to  pas  is  a  prediction  as  safe  as  any  that  can 
be  made  in  the  complex  processes  of  human  affairs. 


9.  BUSINESS  UNIONISM— THE  RELATION  OF  THE  GROUP  TO 
OTHER  GROUPS 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  the  relations  which  obtain  within 
the  business  union,  between  its  members,  and  between  the  rank  and 
file  and  the  leaders.  But  important  as  these  are  for  an  understanding 
of  the  labor  movement,  it  is  the  larger  social  relations,  the  relations 
between  the  union  group  and  other  groups,  and  between  the  union  and 
society  as  a  whole,  that  are  of  primary  importance  for  our  fundamental 
problem  of  social  responsibility.  And  here  also  while  examining  the 
business  union  we  may  discover  within  its  aims  and  policies  the  germs 
of  new  and  different  purposes. 

If  the  analogy  of  the  business  union  to  the  business  corporation  be 
correct,  then  in  its  relations  to  other  groups  it  will  tend  to  approach 
the  same  type;  its  aim  will  be  that  of  any  business  body,  to  corner,  so 
nearly  as  possible,  the  entire  supply  of  the  commodity  in  which  it  deals 
and  to  boost  prices  to  "all  the  traffic  will  bear,"  for  the  profit  of  its 
members.  This  monopolization  of  labor,  and,  if  you  will,  the  consequent 
"labor  profiteering,"  is  the  aim  of  all  business  unionism,  in  so  far  as  it 
is  business  unionism  and  nothing  more,  just  as  it  is  the  aim  of  every 
business  enterprise  in  the  country;  that  is,  just  in  so  far  as  it  remains 
"respectable"  and  "American."  And  just  as  the  business  man  is 
amazed  when  he  is  accused  of  profiteering,  and  in  bewilderment  asks 
since  when  it  has  become  wrong  for  a  man  to  make  as  big  profits  as  he 
possibly  can  and  at  just  what  point  a  fair  profit  becomes  profiteering — 
for  has  not  the  ability  and  the  standing  of  the  business  man  from  time 
immemorial  (which  means  from  the  time  of  the  introduction  of  free 
competition  some  two  centuries  ago)  been  judged  solely  by  the  size  of 
the  profit  he  can  obtain? — just  so  the  business  union  is  at  a  loss  to  under- 
stand criticism  which  seems  to  misjudge  the  basic  principles  of  business 
use  and  wont,  and  to  be  utterly  subversive  of  the  foundations  of  true 
American  initiative  and  enterprise.  And  it  can  hardly  be  gainsaid 
that  one  who  does  not  thus  admit  the  right  of  a  labor  union  to  obtain 
what  wages  it  can  through  economic  pressure,  one  who  believes  that 
"  the  public  "  has  preeminent  right  to  protection  againsjt  excessive  wages — 
such  a  one  must  also  admit  that  the  profits  of  business  corporations  and 
even  the  august  law  of  supply  and  demand  itself  must  submit  to  social 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       167 

regulation  and  control.  For  better  or  worse  such  a  one  questions  the 
entire  economic  system  erected  upon  the  basis  of  private  profit. 

For  out  of  the  individualism  which  is  the  basis  of  modern  economic 
theory  has  grown  a  new  individualism,  an  individualism  in  which  the 
unit  or  individual  is  no  longer  a  single  man,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Adam 
Smith  or  Jeremy  Bentham,  but  a  group  of  men  forming  a  single  legal 
person.  These  bodies  of  men  are  the  real  units  in  industrial  life;  society 
toclay  is  far  too  large  and  far  too  complex  and  integrated  for  the  single 
individual  apart  from  some  group  to  count  for  much.  No  man  would 
think  of  setting  up  a  steel  mill  in  opposition  to  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corpora- 
tion; no  single  individual  would  think  of  setting  up  one  at  all.  Similarly 
no  man  would  hope  alone  to  get  a  higher  wage  or  shorter  hours  from 
that  company.  Industrial  relations  today  obtain  between  great  aggrega- 
tions, between  the  Steel  Corporation  and  the  A.  F.  L.,  not  between 
isolated  individuals. 

Nevertheless,  while  the  unit  has  radically  altered  since  the  heydey 
of  economic  liberalism,  the  type  of  relation  has  remained  the  same.  It 
is  still  an  individualism — in  the  sense  that  each  group  is  out  to  serve  its 
own  interests  with  little  thought  for  those  of  any  other,  save  as  they 
entertain  the  optimistic  and  comforting  belief  that  what  is  best  for  the 
individual  is  ipso  facto  best  for  society  in  general.  The  business  man 
points  with  pride  at  his  affluence  as  betokening  the  prosperity  of  an 
entire  country;  similarly  the  unionist  maintains  that  anything  increas- 
ing the  well-being  of  his  group  ipso  facto  is  of  advantage  to  society. 
This  may  well  be  true;  but  a  robber  chieftain  might  easily  make  the 
same  claim  for  his  band — Robin  Hood  did. 

Yet  the  business  union  is  not  inspired  exclusively  by  this  spirit  of 
group  individualism;  its  purposes  are  constantly  transcending  the  narrow 
group  aims  which  consistency  would  require,  and  are  stretching  out  to 
include  more  and  more  of  society.  All  those  influences  at  work  within 
the  industrial  field,  which  have  been  exhibited  above  in  their  relation 
to  the  internal  organization  of  the  union,  are  exerting  even  greater 
pressure  toward  the  enlargement  of  the  area  within  which  individualism 
has  given  way  to  group  cooperation.  The  history  of  trade  unions,  in 
fact,  is  in  great  measure  the  history  of  the  enlargement  of  the  scope  and 
jurisdiction  of  the  union,  an  enlargement  which,  hi  accordance  with 
the  dual  strain  of  the  labor  movement,  usually  starts  from  reasons  of 
self-interest,  and  then  grows  greater  to  include  social  idealism  also. 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  within  the  group  self-interest  has  been 
in  any  sense  replaced  by  or  abandoned  for  a  social  and  cooperative 


1 68  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

motive;  that  the  worker  has  agreed  to  disregard  his  own  advancement 
and  immolate  himself  that  his  group  may  prosper,  after  the  manner  of 
patriotic  devotion  to  a  mystical  State.  Such  men  there  assuredly  are; 
but  if  such  men  were  all  there  would  be  no  labor  movement.  So  to 
interpret  our  contention  were  totally  to  misread  the  basic  principle  we 
are  advancing.  It  is  rather  that  modern  conditions  have  made  it  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  serve  best  the  interests  of  the  individual,  to  serve  also, 
and  perhaps  first,  those  of  the  group.  Within  the  external  frame  of 
individualistic  relations  there  has  come  to  be  a  merging  of  the  individual 
and  the  social,  so  that  instead  of  being  at  cross  purposes  the  two  are  in 
fundamental  harmony.  What  conflict  remains  is  between  immediate 
and  permanent  interest;  just  as  in  an  army  it  is  to  the  ultimate  safety 
of  the  soldier  to  obey  his  commander's  orders,  though  at  times  his  im- 
mediate security  may  seem  to  lie  in  flight.  There  is  a  constantly  growing 
field  within  which  this  identification  of  interests  holds.  This  is  the 
lesson  of  business  unionism,  even  as  it  is  the  theory  of  Steward. 

The  essential  individualism  that  has  inspired  the  external  policy  of 
the  business  union  is  clear  when  one  investigates  the  history  of  its  re- 
lation to  other  groups.  Primarily  this  comes  out  in  the  attitude  of  the 
business  unionist  toward  membership.  Whom  would  they  admit  to  their 
body  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  exertions?  In  almost  every  case,  with 
,  women,  with  negroes,  with  foreigners  and  aliens,  the  first  impulse  was 
to  exclude  them  entirely  and  retain  for  themselves  the  jobs  and  the 
wages;  this  springs  from  the  instinctive  make- work  philosophy  of  the 
insecure  laborer.  But  in  every  case  it  soon  became  apparent  that  they 
would  be  far  better  off  if  they  retained  their  monopoly  by  absorbing 
competitors  than  if  they  left  them  outside;  they  could  hardly  hope  to 
exclude  them  from  all  employment.  Self-interest  finally  impelled  in- 
clusion; and  then,  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  the  double  strain, 
those  very  men  who  had  most  opposed  such  inclusion  became  most  eager 
to  aid  all  those  possible.  Where  self-interest  did  not  say  nay,  social 
sympathy  was  quick  to  express  itself. 

Consider  the  question  of  admitting  women.  Back  in  the  convention 
of  the  National  Trades'  Union  in  1836  a  committee  on  female  labor 
reported  that  woman's  place  was  in  the  home,  and  that  indulgence  in 
factory  work  injured  both  themselves  and  the  male  operatives.  "As 
an  evidence  of  the  injurious  tendencies  the  female  system  has  upon  the 
male  operatives,  we  will  take  the  societies  composing  the  Union  of 
Philadelphia  and  Vicinity;  for  example,  of  58  societies,  24  are  seriously 
affected  by  female  labor,  to  the  impoverishing  of  whole  factories,  and 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups        169 

benefit  of  none  but  the  employers.  It  is  presumed  that  this  is  a  fair 
criterion  to  judge  of  other  sections  of  the  union;  and  from  all  these  cal- 
culations there  is  evident  reason  to  believe,  that  some  of  the  different 
branches  of  operative  mechanics  will  hi  time  be  superseded  by  female 
operatives  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  the  males,  and  the  consequent  in- 
troduction of  dissipation,  indolence,  and  crime."  l  From  the  thirties 
to  the  sixties  the  bulk  of  the  factory  operatives  in  New  England  were 
women,  and  no  attempt  was  seriously  made  to  organize  them;  where 
women  tried  to  enter  men's  trades  they  usually  met  with  similar  attempts 
at  exclusion  or  even  with  strikes.  As  late  as  1850  the  cordwainers  of 
New  York  provided  in  their  constitution  that  no  woman  should  work 
in  any  of  the  shops  they  controlled  unless  she  were  a  member's  wife  or 
daughter,  although  in  general  the  New  England  cotton  and  shoe  trades 
were  so  largely  in  the  hands  of  women  that  organization  was  forced,  to 
prevent  competition  with  the  men. 

But  when  it  became  apparent  that  women  could  not  be  kept  in  the 
home  the  more  far-seeing  organizations  urged  their  inclusion,  the  na- 
tional officers  usually  having  to  force  the  matter  upon  reluctant  locals. 
In  1867  the  printers  recommended  to  their  locals  the  organization  of 
separate  locals  for  women;  in  1875  the  Cigarmakers'  convention  ad- 
mitted women.  The  Knights  of  Labor,  for  all  its  inclusive  humani- 
tarianism,  did  not  admit  them  till  1880;  while  the  Federation  both  ad- 
mitted them  and  encouraged  their  organization  from  the  very  beginning. 
Of  late  years  the  old  antagonism  has  almost  entirely  passed  away,  and 
the  slogan  " equal  pay  for  equal  work"  has  become  popular,  not  only 
because  of  its  advantage  to  the  men,  but  even  more  because  of  genuine 
sympathy  and  solidarity  with  the  woman  worker.  In  1912  the  only 
unions  specifically  excluding  women  were  the  Barbers,  the  Switchmen, 
the  Holders,  the  Potters,  the  Upholsterers,  and  the  Paper  Makers; 
though  in  the  nature  of  the  case  many  others  were  exclusively  male.2 

Precisely  the  same  general  tendency  may  be  observed  with  regard  to 
the  admission  of  negroes,  though  here  the  question  is  somewhat  com- 
plicated by  Southern  race  prejudice  and  the  desire  of  the  Northerners 
to  fraternize  with  the  blacks  after  the  Civil  War.  They  were  excluded 
until  their  use  as  strike-breakers  and  their  general  low  wages  necessitated 
their  organization;  then  a  real  desire  to  improve  their  condition  mani- 
fests itself.  In  New  Orleans,  Galveston,  and  Savannah  unions  of  colored 
workmen  engaged  along  the  waterfronts  were  in  the  early  eighties  ad- 

1  National  Laborer,  Nov.  12,  1836. 

2  See  F.  E.  Wolfe,  Admission  to  American  Trade  Unions ,  1912. 


170  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

mitted  to  the  city  trades  assemblies  on  an  equal  footing  with  white 
unions.1  The  idealistic  movements  of  the  sixties  and  seventies,  and  the 
Knights  which  grew  out  of  them,  declared  of  course  for  solidarity  with 
the  negroes;  the  Knights'  convention  at  Richmond  in  1886  was  enlivened 
by  many  manoeuvres  of  the  Northerners  to  force  this  equality  on  their 
Southern  confreres.  Powderly  combined  with  a  genuine  humanitarian 
interest  in  the  blacks  an  intelligent  appraisal  of  the  workers'  best  in- 
terests when  he  said:  "Southern  cheap  labor  is  more  a  menace  to  the 
American  toiler  than  the  Chinese,  and  this  labor  must  be  educated."  2 
The  Federation  admitted  the  negro  from  the  beginning,  but  the  difficulty 
of  organizing  the  unskilled  Southern  worker  and  the  prejudices  of  the 
local  unions,  which  in  all  matters  of  admission  are  most  conservative 
and  most  short-sighted,  united  to  keep  him  out  until  fairly  recently. 
In  1910  the  unions  which  excluded  negroes  were  the  Wire  Weavers, 
the  Shipbuilders,  the  Switchmen,  the  Maintenance  of  Way  Employees, 
the  Telegraphers,  the  Railway  Clerks,  and  the  four  Brotherhoods;  but 
constant  efforts  are  made  in  the  A.  F.  L.  convention  to  secure  the  aban- 
donment of  these  restrictions. 

What  has  obtained  with  women  and  with  negroes  has  also  obtained 
with  foreigners  and  alien  immigrants;  the  policy  has  been  to  keep  them 
out  if  possible,  to  organize  them  if  they  are  already  here  competing  with 
American  workers.  Where  a  union  like  those  amongst  the  glass  trades  is 
highly  organized  and  through  the  closed  shop  can  exclude  whomsoever  it 
will,  and  is  much  troubled  by  the  importation  of  foreign  workmen,  it  may 
impose  initiation  fees  as  high  as  $500  upon  the  alien;  others  exclude  him 
entirely.  Ever  since  the  Albany  molders  in  1858  united  to  import  Euro- 
pean strike-breakers,  the  history  of  American  labor  has  been  full  of 
struggles  to  keep  the  market  from  being  flooded  by  unskilled  workers  at 
the  instigation  of  employers  to  whose  advantage  it  is,  in  the  words  of  a 
recent  writer  in  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  to  have  "something  like  105 
men  for  every  hundred  jobs,"  men  with  no  aspirations  after  an  American 
standard.3 

In  1869  the  anthracite  operators  threatened  to  put  an  end  to  their 
labor  troubles  by  importing  coolies  from  China;  a  shoe  manufacturer  in 
North  Adams,  Massachusetts,  actually  did  bring  over  Chinese  cobblers 
who  cost  but  a  dollar  instead  of  three  dollars  a  day.  The  National  Labor 
Union  naturally  protested;  and  largely  as  a  result  the  Burlingame  treaty 

1  Commons,  II,  310. 

2  Powderly,  op.  cit.,  658. 
'July  12,  1920. 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       171 

was  negotiated.  Three  years  later  a  cutlery  works  brought  over  coolies  at 
$18  a  month;  but  these  attempts  were  all  too  patently  subversive  of 
American  standards  to  succeed  in  the  East.  Yet  it  is  suggestive  that  at 
the  time  the  agitation  for  exclusion  was  at  its  height,  District  Assembly 
49,  the  radical  and  advanced  New  York  organization  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  presented  in  the  General  Assembly  a  resolution  that  "special 
efforts  be  made  to  organize  the  Chinese,"  which  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of 
only  95  to  42. 1  Chinese  were  formally  excluded  in  1882. 

The  idealism  which  persisted  in  regarding  America  as  the  home  of  the 
oppressed  overcame  self-interest  in  1878,  when  the  section  of  the  old 
preamble  of  the  Knights  opposing  "servile  races"  was  omitted,  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  "best  not  to  insert  anything  in  the  preamble  which 
could  be  construed  as  opposing  any  section  of  humanity."  Powderly's 
comment  is  typical.  "  While  it  was  a  beautiful  sentiment  which  actuated 
the  men  who  gathered  at  the  first  General  Assembly,  and  while  it  appealed 
to  the  best  instincts  of  the  membership  at  large,  it  was  found  to  be  in 
direct  opposition  to  the  best  interests  of  the  members  of  the  order.  The 
basic  principle  on  which  the  order  was  founded  was  protection,  not  pro- 
tection from  the  manufacturer  or  employer,  alone,  but  from  our  own 
avarice,  our  weakness,  and  from  cheap  workmen  also.  Theoretically  it 
sounded  very  well  to  extend  a  welcome  to  all  to  share  in  the  protection  to 
be  derived  from  organization,  but  it  was  discovered  that  to  carry  out  this 
practice  would  load  the  country  down  with  men  to  whom  the  American 
laborer  could  extend  no  aid,  and  who  were  too  ignorant  to  help  them- 
selves." 2 

But  while  the  workers  had  general  support  in  their  efforts  to  exclude 
Orientals,  they  could  not  hope  to  keep  out  Europeans  also.  In  1869 
manufacturers  began  advertising  abroad  for  labor;  in  1872  Polish  immi- 
gration on  a  large  scale  started,  in  1877  after  the  great  strikes  Hungary 
was  canvassed,  and  in  the  eighties  commenced  the  flow  from  eastern  and 
southern  Europe.  At  first  the  worker,  in  his  desire  to  emulate  the  busi- 
ness man  and  prove  himself  a  good  American,  demanded  a  "high  protec- 
*tive  tariff  on  labor";  but  the  gentlemen  who  upheld  protection  for 
manufactured  articles  waxed  eloquent  over  the  shame  of  destroying  the 
sacred  asylum  of  liberty,  confident  that  labor  was  no  simple  commodity 
like  steel  or  cloth.  The  Knights  managed  in  1885  to  get  a  law,  modified 
two  years  later,  prohibiting  the  importation  of  contract  labor;  but  other- 
wise the  unionists,  unable  to  prevent  the  influx  of  foreign  workers,  turned 

1  Powderly,  426. 


172  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

to  the  next  best  policy  and  decided  to  organize  them.  The  futility  of 
attempting  exclusion  when  we  realize  that  even  by  1886  but  21%  of  the 
workers  of  Illinois  were  Americans  of  the  old  stock,1  and  that  today  in  our 
basic  trades  like  steel  and  coal  over  sixty  per  cent  of  the  workers  are  aliens, 
is  quite  obvious.  So,  save  in  a  few  highly  skilled  trades,  the  unionists 
have  long  ago  abandoned  the  hope  of  keeping  the  foreigner  either  out  of 
the  country  or  out  of  their  union;  and  have  set  to  work  to  carry  to  the 
ignorant  worker  from  southeastern  Europe  the  gospel  of  unionism.  So 
successful  has  this  policy  been  that  today  the  very  men  brought  over  by 
large  corporations  to  furnish  a  willing  and  docile  supply  of  labor  are  de- 
nounced as  foreigners,  aliens,  and  revolutionaries,  and  they  have  proved 
themselves,  in  struggles  like  the  steel  strike  of  1919,  fully  the  equals  of  the 
native  Americans  in  loyalty  and  solidarity.  Indeed,  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  it  is  with  these  newer  workers  that  the  most  vital  force  in  the 
entire  labor  movement  is  to  be  found  today. 

In  each  case,  then,  the  business  union  has  at  first  sought  to  down  its 
rivals,  and  then,  finding  it  more  advantageous,  has  admitted  them  to 
partnership  and  cooperation.  Hence  in  this  particular  the  business  union 
has  come  to  be  unlike  its  prototype,  the  business  corporation.  The  latter 
strives  to  absorb  or  amalgamate  into  a  trust  or  monopoly,  and  then  to 
put  down  and  destroy  any  competitor;  but  the  union  throws  wide  its 
doors  and  allows,  nay,  implores,  all  workers  in  a  given  industry,  and  all 
those  who  desire  to  work  in  it,  to  come  into  the  fold.  If  it  be  a  monopoly, 
it  is  not  an  exclusive  monopoly;  sad  experience  has  taught  it  the  futility  of 
exclusion,  which  injures  those  who  exclude  as  much  as  those  excluded. 

Has  the  business  union,  then,  escaped  the  danger  to  which  the  medieval 
guild  succumbed,  of  becoming  a  closed  corporation  to  deprive  others  of 
the  chance  to  make  a  livelihood?  Despite  tendencies  and  conditions 
which  have  made  the  danger  very  great,  up  to  the  present  it  has,  and 
there  seems  to  be  little  likelihood  that  as  time  goes  on  it  will  become  more 
exclusive.  The  crucial  question,  of  course,  is  that  of  the  relation  to  the 
new  and  younger  worker,  the  question  of  apprenticeship.  We  have  seen 
how  the  masters  of  the  last  century  utilized  the  old  craft  apprenticeship 
laws  to  dispense  with  the  highly  paid  journeymen,  and  how  they  excited 
the  antagonism  of  the  skilled  artisan  through  their  dependence  upon 
11  botch  mechanics  and  apprentices."  This  abuse  of  the  apprentice 
system  by  the  masters  in  the  early  days  provoked  a  strong  and  a  natural 
reaction  and  a  strict  regulation  by  the  union  of  the  numbers  of  appren- 
tices; and  it  was  this  question  that  formed  perhaps  the  most  powerful 
1  Illinois  Bureau  of  Labor,  Report,  1886,  227. 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       173 

incentive  toward  the  collective  agreements  and  conciliation  that  mark 
business  unionism.  This  limitation  is  at  bottom  based  on  the  make- work 
philosophy,  but  there  are  other  elements  involved.  The  Industrial 
Commission  of  1901  reported  "the  chief  motive  which  influences  the 
unions  in  shaping  their  apprentice  rules  is  the  desire  to  maintain  their 
wages  by  diminishing  competition  within  the  trades.  The  only  other 
motive  which  is  not  included  within  this  formulation  is  the  desire,  for 
reasons  which  may  be  classed  as  artistic,  to  prevent  the  lowering  of  the 
standard  of  skill.  This  feeling  can  not  be  supposed  to  exert  more  than  a 
minor  influence  upon  actual  policies."  1  Motley,  however,  in  his  study  of 
the  apprentice  system,  believes  the  latter  motive,  "  the  instinct  for 
workmanship,"  to  be  much  stronger  than  was  supposed  in  the  days 
before  the  application  of  social  psychology  to  the  workers.2 

But  what  has  contributed  more  than  anything  else  to  the  breakdown  of 
the  apprentice  regulations  has  been  the  growing  industrialization  and 
specialization  of  work,  which  has  replaced  the  old  skilled  craftsman  with 
the  unskilled  machine-tender,  who  needs  no  arduous  training  to  become  a 
strike-breaker.  Here  again  limitation  of  membership  spells  ultimate 
ruin;  and  perhaps  the  dominating  spirit  today  is  that  expressed  by  the 
Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers  when  they  voted,  not  to  restrict  mem- 
bership, but  to  seek  the  44-hour  week  that  their  friends  and  relatives  in 
Eastern  Europe  might  be  able  to  come  to  America  to  get  work. 

Indeed,  there  is  even  growing  the  recognition  that  the  union  must  do 
more  than  merely  admit  the  workers  to  its  ranks;  it  must  substitute  for 
the  old  apprentice  system  a  modern  method  of  technical  education. 
Among  many  of  the  older  skilled  unions  the  man  or  boy  who  desired  to 
learn  the  trade  or  advance  in  it  had  to  leave  the  union  and  become  a  scab 
until  he  had  acquired  sufficient  proficiency  to  meet  the  union  regulations; 
but  in  the  newer  industries,  particularly  among  the  garment  makers, 
efforts  are  being  made  to  train  and  educate  the  members  after  they  have 
joined  the  union.  The  establishment  of  labor  colleges  at  Boston,  at 
Seattle,  and  elsewhere  indicates  the  trend  of  the  times.  That  the  admis- 
sion of  new  members  to  a  trade  needs  some  sort  of  social  regulation  is 
admitted  by  most  observers;  it  is  within  the  realm  of  possibility  that 
industrial  education  will  in  the  future  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
unions  themselves. 

In  their  relation,  then,  to  other  groups  seeking  membership  within 
the  union  the  business  unions  have  gradually  abandoned  strictly  business 

1  Report,  v.  17,  p.  53. 

2  J.  M.  Motley,  Apprenticeship  in  American  Trade  Unions,  1907. 


174  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

principles  because  it  has  proved  better  business  policy  to  do  so.  The  same 
can  be  said  of  its  relations  with  other  groups  with  whom  it  comes  into 
contact.  Take  for  instance  the  bitter  jurisdictional  disputes  that  from 
time  immemorial  have  marked  craft  unionism,  disputes  between  crafts 
with  conflicting  claims  over  certain  branches  of  work.  These  have  in  the 
past  often  led  to  scabbing  on  the  strikes  of  fellow-workers  in  the  most 
callous  disregard  of  union  standards;  they  have  generally  resulted  from 
changed  processes  and  the  improvement  of  industrial  technique,  and 
occur  whenever,  for  instance  steel  ships  replace  wooden  ones,  or  electric 
locomotives  steam  engines.  Here  selfish  group  interest  certainly  operates 
to  the  exclusion  of  wider  sympathies  and  ideals;  it  is  largely  because  of 
such  a  dispute  between  the  trainmen  and  the  maintenance  of  way  workers 
that  the  Brotherhoods  have  withheld  their  strength  from  the  A.  F.  L. 
Yet  this  is  one  of  the  most  potent  causes  making  for  industrial  unionism, 
either  openly,  or  disguised  as  "blanket  agreements"  or  trade  depart- 
ments. Craft  rivalry  has  served  only  to  discredit  the  business  union  in 
the  eyes  of  the  younger  worker;  for  the  area  within  which  group  coopera- 
tion and  loyalty  now  obtains  far  surpasses  the  small  limits  of  any  one 
craft. 

Even  graver  charges  of  regard  only  for  group  interest  can  be  brought 
against  those  highly  skilled  business  trades  which  employ  helpers  or 
assistants  and  pay  them  directly;  in  these  cases  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  worker  thus  placed  in  the  position  of  employer  to  some  one  be- 
neath him  has  behaved  precisely  as  the  employer  he  censures,  and  has 
passed  on  with  interest  the  ruthless  treatment  he  has  received.  It  was 
formerly  the  practice,  before  machinery  revolutionized  the  trade,  for 
every  glass  bottle-blower  to  furnish  a  boy  to  help  him  at  his  work;  and  it 
is  to  the  shame  of  the  workers  that  they  vigorously  opposed  the  applica- 
tion of  child  labor  laws  to  these  helpers.  Moreover,  the  treatment 
accorded  by  unions  to  the  labor  in  their  own  offices  has  not  always  been 
such  as  they  would  desire  to  have  meted  out  to  them.  Such  phenomena 
are  marks  of  the  dominance  of  the  business  ideal  and  of  the  selfish  motive 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  considerations. 

Finally  there  is  the  attitude  of  the  craft  unionist  toward  the  unskilled; 
nor  is  it  very  different  from  what  we  have  already  observed.  The  inter- 
ests of  the  latter  have  generally  been  protected  only  when  economic  cir- 
cumstances have  forced  it  as  a  measure  of  protection  to  the  skilled.  Yet 
there  have  always  been  waves  of  sympathy  that  have  extended  far  outside 
the  single  trade.  As  we  have  already  seen,  the  business  unionism  of  the 
eighties  and  nineties  developed  under  the  aegis  of  Steward's  philosophy 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       175 

because  that  philosophy  so  well  represented  the  merging  of  the  desire  to 
improve  the  workers'  own  condition  with  the  desire  to  aid  their  fellows. 
It  became  the  essence  of  union  principles  that  only  by  raising  all  could  any 
one  be  raised;  and,  though  in  practice  often  disregarded,  this  principle  has 
with  the  development  of  flavoring  industrial  conditions  come  to  have 
more  and  more  appeal. 

\li  is  claimed  that  the  Knights  of  Labor  failed  because  it  sought  to 
enroll  the  unskilled;  but  while  to  some  extent  the  case  this  is  not  strictly 
true.  Not  because  it  tried  to  interest  skilled  workers  in  men  about 
whom  they  cared  little,  but  because  the  unskilled  were  not  strong  enough 
for  successful  organization — this  is  the  truth  in  the  contention;  and  had 
the  Knights  organized  industrial  rather  than  mere  labor  unions  it  is 
still  a  question  whether  it  might  not  have  succeeded.  Its  failure,  hi 
spreading  the  conviction  that  the  unskilled  were  impossible  of  successful 
organization,  undoubtedly  set  back  their  cause.  . 

The  Federation,  too,  has  latterly  shown  much  concern  for  the  un- 
skilled, both  in  its  large  industrial  unions  and  in  smaller  so-called  fed- 
eral labor  unions.  Particular  activity  followed  the  challenge  of  the  I.  W. 
W.  But  in  general,  as  a  part  of  the  growing  tendency  toward  industrial- 
ism, the  unskilled  are  being  absorbed  into  unions  as  rapidly  as  they  can 
successfully  menace  the  organized  workers;  and  once  in  they  become 
part  and  parcel  of  the  great  army  of  loyal  workers. 

Finally  business  unionism  betrays  its  essential  group  individualism 
in  its  relations  to  political  parties.  Here  it  is  its  policy  to  utilize  them 
as  means  to  the  attainment  of  its  own  group  ends;  to  develop  efficient 
lobbies,  and  while  disclaiming  any  broader  social  outlook  to  vote  for 
one  candidate  and  oppose  the  other  according  as  he  favors  or  opposes 
the  measures  labor  desires.  But  this  is  but  typical  of  the  American 
political  system  which  regards  parties  as  the  means  whereby  individual 
and  group  interests  can  be  harmonized  into  socially  effective  organiza- 
tions. 

These  examples  of  the  relations  between  the  business  union  and  other 
groups  in  the  community  are  sufficient  to  make  clear  the  nature  of  that 
group  individualism  in  accordance  with  which  its  actions  are  regulated. 
But  the  most  important  relations  of  all  are  those  that  concern  business 
unionism  and  society  as  a  whole,  and  which  obtain  between  it  and  "  the 
public",  taken  in  its  most  general  significance  as  society  organized  for 
purposes  other  than  production,  the  chief  of  which  economically  is 
consumption.  And  here  the  business  union  acts  just  as  do  other  busi- 
ness corporations;  when  weak  it  is  quite  willing  to  implore  public  aid 


176  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

and  sympathy,  just  as  weak  industries  crave  either  large  grants  of  land, 
like  the  railroads,  or  high  protective  tariffs,  like  the  steel  mills.  But 
when  the  union  has  grown  strong  and  powerful,  while  still  preserving 
its  special  protection  where  its  interests  are  thereby  furthered,  it  is  prone 
to  insist  on  its  private  rights  and  independence  where  such  interference 
by  society  would  militate  against  them — again  in  a  way  not  entirely 
dissimilar  from  a  business  corporation.  Thus  the  unions  of  Australia 
when  they  were  weak  demanded  compulsory  arbitration,  or  the  inter- 
ference of  "the  public"  in  industrial  disputes  to  enforce  upon  employers 
higher  wages  and  standards;  and  so  long  as  this  resulted  in  the  lifting 
of  sweated  trades  to  the  level  of  the  general  laboring  population,  they 
were  most  enthusiastic  in  favor  of  this  new  instrument  of  securing  their 
interests.  But  when  the  arbitrators  refused  to  grant  standards  higher 
than  those  generally  observed,  the  unionists  went  back  to  their  own 
method  of  strike  and  indifference  to  public  arbitration,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence in  Australasian  industry,  just  as  in  Canada  and  wherever  they 
have  been  tried,  compulsory  arbitration  laws  are  unenforceable. 

While  not  monoplies  in  then:  attitude  toward  other  groups  of  workers, 
seeking  to  include  all  competitors  where  business  corporations  seek  to 
exclude  and  destroy  them,  the  business  unions  are  monopolies  in  their 
attitude  toward  employers  and  "the  public."  In  comparison  with 
other  monopolies,  they  are  apt  to  be  more  powerful  and  considerably 
less  vulnerable  than  all  but  the  very  strongest  trusts.  Legally  the 
latter  seem  almost  impregnable,  while  against  unions  injunctions  are 
easily  obtained,  but  legal  and  actual  vulnerability  are  two  very  differ- 
ent things,  and  it  is  considerably  easier  to  force  a  small  group  of  em- 
ployers to  surrender  their  property  and  their  means  of  production  should 
they  refuse  to  serve  the  public  (a  course  actually  taken  recently  in  Italy) 
than  it  is  to  force  a  great  body  of  workers  to  become  productive.  This 
question  verges  on  our  fundamental  problem,  and  will  receive  later 
consideration;  here  we  but  point  out  the  monopolistic  nature  of  the 
business  union. 

We  have  already  seen  the  attitude  both  sellers  and  buyers  of  labor 
take  toward  outside  mediation  and  arbitration — accepting  it  when  it 
strengthens  their  position,  rejecting  it  when,  as  hi  the  case  of  Mr.  Gary 
in  the  1919  steel  strike,  it  bids  fair  to  weaken  it.  This  attitude  is  typi- 
cal; the  business  union,  like  the  business  man  in  general,  operates  for 
profit  and  not  for  any  "sentimental"  desire  to  serve  the  community. 
That  would  hardly  be  "good  business."  Hence  the  business  unionists 
aim  to  get  what  they  can  and  let  the  consumer  pay;  as  one  leader  re- 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       177 

cently  expressed  it,  if  the  employers  do  not  make  enough  money  they 
can  easily  "pass  the  buck"  to  the  public.  Most  workers  now  recognize 
that  a  continual  rise  of  wages  which  the  employer  can  use  to  send  prices 
up  is  useless  as  a  permanent  measure  of  relief;  but  even  the  most  in- 
telligent and  enlightened  know  that  by  strikes  they  can  manage  to  keep 
themselves  a  little  ahead  of  the  game,  and  until  other  relief  is  at  hand 
they  persist  in  the  tactics  of  business  unionism. 

Business  disregard  of  the  welfare  of  the  community  resulting  from  an 
eye  on  the  main  chance  may  even  develop  into  that  extreme  type  known 
as  predatory  unionism,  in  which  the  workers  in  a  monopoly  unite  with 
the  employers  to  boost  prices.  The  activities  of  "Skinny"  Madden 
and  Brindell  of  the  building  trades  form  a  good  example;  others  are  the 
willingness  of  transportation  corporations  and  other  public  utilities  to 
utilize  the  increased  pay  they  offer  their  workers  as  an  argument  toward 
the  securing  of  higher  fares  and  rates.  Such  a  policy  is  merely  an  of- 
fensive and  defensive  alliance  between  business  organizations  for  the 
better  control  of  the  trade. 

This  attitude  finds  further  exemplification  in  the  readiness  of  some 
business  unions  to  find  an  excuse  for  breaking  their  contracts  when  it  is 
no  longer  advantageous  to  them  to  keep  them.  In  general  of  course  the 
sanctity  of  contracts  as  a  cardinal  business  principle  is  rigorously  ad- 
hered to,  as  the  only  possible  basis  upon  which  collective  bargaining 
can  operate;  but  certain  discrepancies  between  labor  and  other  com- 
modities prevents  a  too  rigorous  application  of  contract  law  and  custom. 
Labor,  unlike  other  articles  for  whose  supply  contracts  are  made,  can 
not,  as  yet,  at  least,  be  attached  for  debt,  or  non-fulfillment  of  agree- 
ment. And  whereas  the  business  man  who  undertakes  obligations 
which  subsequent  conditions  render  impossible  to  fulfill  can  always 
clear  himself  by  declaring  himself  insolvent  and  going  through  bank- 
ruptcy procedure,  the  labor  union  which  makes  an  agreement  to  work 
at  a  wage  which  a  rapid  rise  in  prices  later  reduces  to  less  then  suffi- 
cient to  support  its  members  has  no  means  of  liquidating  its  assets  and 
starting  out  afresh.  If  contracts  between  unions  and  employers  were 
made  enforceable  by  law,  as  many  advocate,  this  would  be  tantamount 
to  reviving  in  new  form  the  old  imprisonment  for  debt.  One  solution 
might  possibly  lie  in  the  establishment  of  a  bankruptcy  court  for  labor 
contracts;  another,  in  making  real  instead  of  monetary  wages  the  basis 
of  collective  agreement.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  lack  of  any  means  of 
freeing  the  union  of  obligations  which  it  has  become  impossible  to  fulfill 
is  the  direct  cause  of  nine-tenths  of  the  so-called  "broken  contracts" 


178  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

which  have  not  first  been  broken  by  bad  faith  on  the  part  of  the  employer. 
That  there  does  exist  a  residue  of  cases  where  group  interest  and  free- 
dom from  penalty  lead  unions  to  violate  contracts  can  not,  however,  be 
denied;  it  is  one  of  the  consequences  of  group  individualism. 

But  the  direct  clash  between  the  interest  of  the  business  union  and 
that  of  society  occurs  hi  the  use  of  labor's  main  weapon,  the  strike. 
The  worker  never  strikes  against  "the  public"  or  the  consumer;  but 
the  nature  of  his  weapon  obliges  him  to  injure  the  employer  through 
the  consumer.  Direct  injury  or  sabotage  he  rarely  resorts  to;  but  his 
weapon  by  its  very  indirectness  necessitates  the  injury  of  the  public. 
Thus  the  contention  is  true  that  every  strike  is  to  the  immediate  dis- 
advantage of  the  consumer,  and  that  its  use  is  always  attended  by  loss 
to  the  community.  But  in  placing  responsibility  it  is  not  so  clearly 
recognized  that  it  is  not  the  side  that  begins  the  strike  or  lock-out  that 
is  alone  to  blame  for  the  cessation  of  production.  Preference  of  indi- 
vidual group  interests  to  the  interests  of  the  community  is  the  direct 
cause  of  industrial  warfare,  but  the  employer  who  prefers  higher  profits 
to  granting  any  demands  of  his  workers  is  placing  his  own  interests  ahead 
of  the  public  need  for  production  just  as  surely  as  is  the  group  of  workers 
who  prefer  higher  wages  to  that  same  production.  A  strike  and  its 
resultant  loss  to  the  consumer  is  caused  and  continued  just  as  much  by 
refusal  to  accede  to  demands  as  it  is  by  persistence  in  making  them, 
and  for  precisely  the  same  reasons:  the  worker  prefers  to  see  the  public 
suffer  rather  than  accept  or  continue  a  low  standard  of  living,  and  the 
_w  )  employer  prefers  it  to  accepting  lower  profits.  This  holds  true  in  both 
strikes  and  lockouts,  and  is  entirely  independent  of  the  particular  group 
whose  demands  precipitated  the  conflict.  The  strike  is  the  logical 
result  of  the  system  of  group  individualism ;  it  can  pass  away  only  when 
that  system  does.  In  this  similarity  established  between  the  actions 
of  capital  and  labor,  no  invidious  comparison,  of  course,  is  intended,  nor 
any  justification;  the  condemnation  often  bestowed  upon  the  course 
of  labor  by  the  editors  of  public  opinion  is  merited,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
and  is  a  promising  sign.  But  it  must  be  clearly  realized  that  this  con- 
demnation cannot  be  voiced  against  the  members  of  the  unions  with- 
out at  the  same  time  applying  to  every  business  man  and  organization; 
for  it  is  a  condemnation,  not  of  individuals,  but  of  the  entire  theoretical 
basis  of  modern  business  structure.  The  union  that  strikes  to  prevent 
a  reduction  of  real  wages  is  doing  precisely  what  the  mill  does  which 
shuts  down  when  further  operation  would  be  unprofitable;  and  the  same 
approbation  or  condemnation  visited  upon  the  business  man  who,  run- 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       179 

ning  the  chances  of  periodical  hard  times  and  losses,  makes  as  high 
profits  as  he  can  while  he  can,  must  be  applied  also  to  the  union  which, 
exposed  to  the  same  danger  of  unemployment  in  bad  times,  extorts 
what  is  can  from  employer  and  public  while  it  can.  Neither  workers  nor 
employer  wants  to  curtail  production;  yet  in  the  modern  economic  or- 
ganization he  must. 

Public  opinion  has  today  reached  the  stage  where  in  certain  industries 
it  calls  "public  utilities"  it  refuses  to  allow  the  employer,  even  to  his 
loss,  to  curtail  his  service  to  the  public.  Municipal  transportation  and 
power  supply  is  supposed  to  belong  to  this  class,  as  of  course  do  all 
those  services  carried  on  directly  by  the  government;  and  it  has  been 
suggested  that  a  similar  enforcement  be  directed  against  the  workers 
in  such  public  utilities.  Aside  from  the  non-existence  of  bankruptcy 
laws  for  labor,  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  find  any  line  of  demarka- 
tion  between,  say,  the  supplying  of  light  and  the  supplying  of  moving 
pictures,  which  will  define  just  when  an  industry  is  a  public  utility  and 
when  it  is  not.  Why,  for  example,  is  it  more  essential  that  men  in  the 
post  office  be  not  allowed  to  strike  than  men  in  the  coal  mines?  or  that 
trolley  lines  be  forced  to  supply  service  than  woolen  mills  clothing? 
The  nature  of  the  employer  and  the  form  of  organization  in  the  indus- 
try bears  no  relevance  to  the  necessity  of  the  service  to  the  public. 

Thus  in  this  most  important  of  all  relations  the  business  union  re- 
veals its  dominance  by  the  philosophy  and  ideology  and  methods  of 
group  individualism.  It  is  like  any  other  respectable  corporation. 
"The  steel  industry,"  runs  the  recent  Interchurch  report  on  the  1919 
steel  strike,1  "is  being  run  for  the  making  of  profit,  and  not  primarily 
for  the  making  of  steel  as  the  country  needs  it,  and  it  favors  (a)  spells 
of  idleness  during  which  the  country  and  the  steel  workers  pay  for  the 
maintenance  of  idle  machinery  and  later  (b)  spurts  of  long  hours,  high 
speed  labor."  Without  pausing  to  ask  who  on  earth  ever  supposed 
the  steel  industry  was  being  run  "primarily  for  the  making  of  steel  as 
the  country  needs  it,"  we  could  add,  "The  business  union  is  being  run 
for  profit,  and  not  primarily  for  the  production  of  commodities  as  the 
country  needs  them,  and  it  favors  (a)  periods  of  enforced  shut-down 
during  which  the  public  suffers  and  (b)  high  wages  which  add  to  the 
cost  of  living  for  everyone." 

"But,"  say  the  loyal  members  of  the  Federation  who  do  not  yet 
realize  this  similarity  of  aim,  (though  they  are  growing  fewer  every 
day)  "you  forget  that  the  worker  is  acting  only  in  self-defense."  As- 
1  New  York  Times,  July  28,  1920. 


i8o  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

suredly,  the  worker  would  starve  if  through  strikes  he  did  not  enforce 
a  living  wage;  but  so  by  the  same  token  would  the  employer  who  made 
I  no  profits.  When  does  a  fair  profit  become  profiteering?  When  does 
self-defense  become  depredation  against  the  public?  The  man  who 
admitted  that  in  prosperous  times  the  business  man  who  is  not  making 
huge  profits  and  the  laborer  who  is  not  making  huge  wages  are  incom- 
petent, was  but  drawing  the  logical  conclusions  from  our  system  of 
group  individualism. 

What,  then,  is  the  cause  of  this  general  sense  of  irresponsibility 
towards  the  community  or  its  needs,  of  the  absence  of  any  sense  of 
obligation  toward  society,  which  is  the  characteristic  note  of  business 
unionism?  Why  has  group  individualism  become  dominant,  threaten- 
ing the  very  basis  of  social  and  industrial  existence  and  eating  the  heart 
out  of  the  great  industrial  machine  which  the  last  century  created  in 
Western  civilization?  We  have  now  arrived  at  a  position  where  we 
are  able  to  analyze  the  causes  of  the  condition  we  regard  as  dangerous. 
At  bottom  it  is  the  very  necessity  of  the  individualistic  economic  sys- 
tem upon  which  that  civilization  rests;  capitalism,  fully  developed, 
would  thus  seem  to  be  cutting  its  own  throat.  The  purpose  determin- 
ing the  structure  and  methods  of  the  union  is  the  same  as  that  deter- 
mining all  business  and  economic  activity  everywhere:  the  desire  for 
profits,  if  possible  with  resulting  benefit  to  society,  but  first  and  last, 
for  good  or  for  ill,  the  desire  for  profits^  ^ 

Yet  there  is  a  still  further  reason  why  the  business  union  is  irrespon- 
sible: whereas  the  capitalist  is  directly  responsible  to  the  community, 
in  that  he  possesses  the  power  and  control  of  the  physical  means  of  pro- 
duction, the  worker  is  primarily  responsible  to,  and  is  urged  to  be  loyal 
to,  his  employer's  profits,  and  only  secondarily  to  the  community  or 
its  needs.  Whether  or  not  production  will  continue  or  will  be  suspended 
is  vested  legally  in  the  capitalist  and  owner  of  the  factory;  that  is  the 
meaning  of  the  great  principle  of  private  property  on  which  contem- 
porary civilization  rests.  If  a  strike  threatens  it  is  for  the  employer 
to  decide  whether  the  loss  to  his  pocket-book  or  the  loss  to  the  public 
will  be  preferred;  but  for  the  workers  the  decision  is  between  loss  to 
their  pay-rolls  or  loss  to  dividends.  The  employer  is  in  direct  relations 
with  the  consumer,  he  receives  his  remuneration  from  that  consumer. 
The  worker  is  but  indirectly  related  to  the  consumer;  not  the  purchaser 
but  the  employer  remunerates  him.  It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  build 
up  or  to  expect  a  feeling  of  loyalty  and  responsibility  to  be  developed 
between  two  parties  whose  interests,  as  are  those  of  employer  and  em- 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       181 

ployee,  are  in  many  respects  antithetical.  And  if  the  worker  sees  that 
the  community  does  not  hold  the  employer,  who  is  in  direct  relations 
with  it,  responsible  for  failure  to  supply  service;  if  he  sees  Mr.  Gary 
lauded  and  praised  instead  of  being  charged  with  deliberately  curtail- 
ing the  production  of  steel,  if  he  sees  no  complaint  against  the  mill- 
owners  who  shut  down  because  they  cannot  get  the  prices  they  want, 
he  is  not  likely  to  be  over-solicitous  of  restraining  his  demands  and  re- 
fraining from  securing  them  by  strike,  of  "loyally"  helping  his  em- 
ployer make  large  profits,  on  the  plea  that  he  must  operate  the  industry 
for  the  good  of  the  community.  Efforts  to  create  a  feeling  of  loyalty 
and  responsibility  to  the  employer  are,  in  fact,  regarded  by  the  work- 
ers, and  generally,  it  must  be  confessed,  quite  correctly,  though  some- 
times inadequately,  as  the  efforts  of  the  employers  to  save  themselves 
and  their  profits. 

For  it  is  to  his  profits,  not  to  the  public,  that  the  capitalist  wants  the 
worker  to  be  responsible.  That  would  imply  making  of  the  worker  a 
partner  in  the  industry,  and  granting  him  real  control  over  its  direc- 
tion; and  it  is  one  of  the  cardinal  tenets  of  good  business  that  the  worker 
is  in  no  wise  a  sharer  in  the  enterprise.  The  business  belongs  to  the 
Company  or  the  owner,  not  to  the  workers  in  it;  and  the  former  alone 
are  responsible  for  its  conduct.  The  employee  has  been  carefully  made 
to  feel  that  his  personal  fate  is  negligible  and  of  no  account.  "You're 
fired,"  says  the  foreman;  "it's  easy  enough  to  fill  your  place."  "If 
you  do  not  wish  to  accept  these  wages,"  says  the  suaver  superinten- 
dent, "there  are  plenty  of  men  who  do."  Raw  materials  to  be  had  in 
one  market  are  useless  if  there  is  more  in  another  cheaper  one.  Under 
such  conditions,  with  labor  just  as  responsible  and  just  as  capable  of 
responsibility  for  the  conduct  of  the  industry  as  the  pig-iron  or  the 
coal,  it  is  not  much  wonder  that  the  workers  do  not  develop  a  loyalty 
to  the  interests  of  the  public  or  of  anybody  outside  themselves.  Before 
they  can  be  expected  to  regard  themselves  as  cooperating  in  the  effi- 
cient service  of  the  community  they  must  be  given  some  opportunity 
to  cooperate  and  serve. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  unfavorable  conditions,  if  there  exist  some 
strong  general  social  purpose  the  business  union  will  respond.  The 
impulse  is  not  lacking;  it  is  the  opportunity  which  rarely  comes.  During 
the  war  the  unionists  of  every  land,  hardened  and  practical  business 
men  though  they  were,  responded  almost  to  a  man  to  the  call  made  upon 
them.  They  would  work  efficienctly  and  well  so  soon  as  they  felt  that 
the  object  of  their  endeavor  was  to  further  aims  far  greater  than  the 


182  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

« 

swelling  of  dividends.  In  countless  speeches  and  articles  they  learned 
that  they  were  the  men  behind  the  men  behind  the  guns,  that  upon 
them  ultimately  rested  the  safety  of  their  friends  and  relatives  in  the 
trenches  and  their  own  homes  and  families.  The  whole  community 
suddenly  awoke  to  perceive  that  they,  the  workers,  were  important  and 
indispensable  members.  It  was  no  longer,  "If  you  don't  like  it  you're 
fired."  It  was  "Men  wanted  at  high  wages  with  good  conditions." 
The  community  expected  the  workers  to  do  their  duty  and  gave  them 
an  adequate  remuneration  for  doing  it;  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  re- 
sponded nobly  and  well.  Despite  all  the  conditions  militating  against 
such  efficient  functioning,  as  the  need  increased  the  workers  loyally 
outstripped  it. 

But  when  peace  broke  out,  it  was  no  longer  a  question  of  "making  the 
world  safe  for  democracy"  or  working  "for  King  and  Country"  or 
" Pour  la  France  ";  instead  it  was  a  question  of  "  getting  back  to  normal." 
Perhaps  just  because  of  their  taste  of  efficient  production  for  service  as  a 
motive  rather  than  the  profit  of  the  stock-holder,  the  workers  in  all 
lands  are  far  from  enthusiastic  about  swelling  their  employers'  dividends. 
No  longer  does  the  press  speak  of  "rewarding  the  faithful  worker"; 
its  tune  has  changed  to  an  exhortation  to  all  good  citizens  to  come  out 
and  put  down  through  strike-breaking  the  "autocracy  of  labor."  At- 
tempts like  the  Plumb  plan  to  formulate  a  method,  however  imperfectly, 
whereby  the  railway  men  may  work  together  toward  the  efficient  opera- 
tion of  the  roads  as  a  public  utility,  and  thus  carry  over  into  peace  times 
the  stimulus  and  spur  of  the  war  period  when  they  were  operated  on 
that  basis,  are  met  with  the  cry  of  "rank  Bolshevism."  It  is  no  wonder 
that  the  unionists  do  not  feel  the  same  enthusiasm  in  "ensuring  the 
supremacy  of  American  business"  as  they  did  in  fighting  the  armies  of 
the  Kaiser;  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  see  little  incentive  to  work  hard  for 
their  employers  if  they  can  have  a  good  tune  without  it.  To  many  com- 
petent observers  it  has  indeed  appeared,  as  Mr.  Laski  said,  that  the 
mainspring  of  the  capitalistic  system,  the  willingness  of  the  worker  to 
work  for  the  gain  of  the  capitalist,  has  indeed  snapped. 

The  experience  of  war  tune  teaches  again  the  old  lesson  that  any 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  labor  movement  can  not  fail  to  cor- 
roborate, that  the  workers  are  eager  arid  anxious  to  do  their  work  faith- 
fully and  well,  with  a  view  to  the  well-being  of  the  community  as  well 
as  to  their  own  interests,  if  the  community  will  but  respond  to  their 
overtures  and  grant  them  the  conditions  of  efficient  functioning.  During 
the  war  nothing  was  too  good  for  our  munition-makers  and  ship-builders, 


Business  Unionism — Relation  of  the  Group  to  other  Groups       183 

because  we  realized  that  the  better  their  conditions  the  better  they 
would  work  and  produce.  Today  it  is  "pampered  labor  "  and  "  unwonted 
luxury."  When  responsibility  is  expected  of  the  workers,  they  have 
responded;  when  the  community  has  rejected  their  social  idealism  and 
scornfully  delivered  them  over  to  the  mercy  of  their  employer,  disil- 
lusioned they  have  been  forced  to  conform  to  the  group  individualism 
which  rules  society. 

For  the  public  feels  no  reciprocal  responsibility  to  labor  for  the  re- 
sponsibility it  demands  of  it.  When  it  fears  for  its  supply  of  some 
commodity  it  threatens  troops  and  injunction,  and  swarms  out  to  put 
down  strikes  to  the  great  joy  of  the  employer;  but  has  it  ever  done 
anything  for  the  worker  which  he  has  not  forced  it  to  do  by  his  own 
exertions?  It  protects  any  employer  who  wishes  to  start  a  new  business 
against  the  competition  of  foreign  manufacturers,  even  though  in  so 
doing  it  may  double  or  treble  the  cost  to  itself;  but  has  it  ever  protected 
the  weak  laborer  from  the  competition  of  unskilled  immigrants? 

Frank  Morrison,  Secretary  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  and 
a  staunch  business  unionist  if  there  ever  was  one,  said  recently:  "  The 
workers  will  not  concede  that  the  community  has  any  purpose  or  inten- 
tion to  render  justice  to  the  workers  should  it  force  itself  into  participa- 
tion in  industrial  relations.  On  the  contrary,  its  only  object  in  forcing 
itself  into  these  relations  is  to  prevent  the  workers  from  taking  advantage 
of  natural  conditions  to  better  their  economic  condition  ...  a  right 
which  the  community  holds  sacred  when  applied  to  property.  .  .  . 
The  community's  interest  in  the  worker  is  founded  upon  its  own  desire 
for  the  worker's  commodities,  and  not  upon  any  belief  in  the  rights  of 
the  worker;  its  concern  is  not  with  the  wages  paid  to  the  workers  or  the 
conditions  under  which  they  work,  but  rather  with  the  continuous 
operation  of  industry  so  that  its  wants  may  be  supplied  without  inter- 
ruption. After  these  wants  have  been  supplied  it  is  a  matter  of  no 
concern  to  the  community  what  becomes  of  the  worker."  1 

This  is  the  worker's  conception  of  the  community,  based  solely  upon 
the  bitter  experience  of  the  past.  This  is  the  "community"  in  the  sense 
denned,  society  organized  as  consumers,  the  political  machinery  through 
which  society  functions.  It  is  incontestable  that  this  "community" 
is  controlled  by  capitalistic  interests  which  through  legislature,  court, 
and  press  secure  that  the  interests  of  those  with  a  stake  in  the  country, 
business  men  and  employers,  shall  be  followed.  The  "community" 
also  claims  that  this  at  the  same  time  makes  for  the  best  interest  of  all 
1  New  York  Times,  July  18,  1920. 


1 84  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  workers.  The  latter  doubt  this.  They  honestly  believe  that  the 
dice  are  loaded  against  them,  that  the  government  is  hostile  to  them 
and  has  no  concern  for  their  interests.  They  believe  that  the  "com- 
munity" desires  low  prices  even  if  it  means  starvation  wages.  They 
believe  that  it  desires  the  stoppage  of  strikes  no  matter  what  the  justice 
of  the  strikers'  claims.  They  believe  that  it  cares  not  a  whit  what 
becomes  of  them  so  long  as  its  wants  are  cheaply  rilled.  And  it  would 
indeed  be  very  hard  to  prove  that  the  workers  are  not  right. 

The  blame,  if  blame  there  be,  for  the  irresponsibility  and  selfish  re- 
gard for  group  interests  which  the  business  union  in  common  with  the 
business  man  displays  on  occasion  must  be  laid  squarely  at  the  door  of 
society  at  large.  It  has  acquiesced  in  a  social  philosophy  that  has 
made  such  things  possible;  it  cannot  assail  labor  unions  without  as- 
sailing its  own  standards  and  its  own  acts.  \  And  that  small  professional 
group  who  are  comparatively  detached  from  industrial  conflict,  that 
remnant  left  over  when  labor  and  capital  have  been  subtracted,  to 
whom  editors  and  professors  appeal  with  sublime  hope  for  impartiality, 
the  "community"  in  this  sense  has  only  its  own  selfish  disregard  of 
the  workers'  desires  and  hopes  and  its  unthinking  subservience  to  the 
interests  of  the  employing  and  business  classes  to  thank  if  the  workers 
in  their  struggle  to  improve  their  conditions  are  too  busy  to  consider 
the  inconvenience  their  acts  may  cause  for  the  clerk  or  the  preacher. 


io.  BUSINESS  UNIONISM— ITS  IDEAL  AND  ITS  IMPLICATIONS 

THE  ultimate  aim  of  the  labor  movement  is  the  attainment  of  security 
and  an  equal  status  in  society;  business  unionism  seeks  to  realize  this 
aim  through  the  organization  of  a  monopoly  in  labor  and  the  selling  of 
this  labor,  as  a  business  proposition,  to  employers  in  exchange  for  a 
secure  and  improved  status.  Business  unionism  thus  has  a  special 
ideal  and  aim  of  its  own  toward  which  it  is  tacitly  if  not  consciously 
working,  a  state  of  affairs  which  if  achieved  would  represent  for  it  the 
best  possible  society. 

This  ultimate  aim  includes,  first  of  all,  the  complete  organization 
of  the  trade.  Collective  bargaining  is  successful  just  so  far  as  it  is  in  the 
power  of  the  union  to  control  all  the  workers  hi  a  given  field.  If  any 
large  proportion  remain  outside,  the  union  is  exposed  to  their  compe- 
tition, and  finds  it  impossible  to  carry  on  a  successful  strike  so  long  as 
the  employer  can  secure  as  many  men  as  he  wants  at  his  own  pay.  Bar- 
gaining power  is  effective  only  as  it  is  effectively  backed  up  by  the 
power  to  withdraw  services.  The  aim  of  every  union,  no  matter  what 
its  conscious  philosophy,  if  it  desires  to  secure  any  concessions  from 
the  employers,  is  to  attain  that  ideal  of  the  unionist's  heart,  the  fully 
organized  trade.  Revolutionary  or  predatory  unionism,  which,  like 
the  I.  W.  W.  repudiates  all  contracts  and  agreements,  of  course  does 
not  find  this  essential;  the  I.  W.  W.  aims  rather  by  swift  forays  and 
guerilla  attacks  to  force  the  employer  out  of  business.  Even  the  I.  W.  W., 
however,  hope  eventually  to  attain  complete  organization,  and  in  busi- 
ness unionism  this  is  the  goal  of  the  workers'  hopes.  This  does  not 
necessarily  mean  the  closed  shop;  the  closed  shop  is  not  an  end  in  it- 
self, but  a  means  to  the  attainment  of  organization.  A  union  which 
like  the  railway  brotherhoods,  or  the  clothing  unions,  has  practically 
organized  the  whole  of  its  trade  cares  very  little  indeed  whether  the 
shop  be  closed  or  open,  whether,  since  there  are  scarcely  any  non-union- 
ists, they  be  discriminated  against  or  no.  Such  a  union  knows  that 
every  worker  will  want  to  join  the  union,  and  that  a  genuine  open  shop, 
a  shop  in  which  there  is  no  discrimination  against  the  unionist,  speedily 
becomes  a  union  shop. 

But  complete  organization  necessarily  means  far  more  than  the  or- 


1 86  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

ganization  of  a  single  trade.  When  the  worker  was  still  a  skilled  artisan 
the  craft  was  the  important  division;  the  cobbler,  the  carpenter,  the 
mason — these  were  the  economic  units,  and  the  cobbler's  outfit,  the  car- 
penter's kit,  were  the  tools  and  means  of  production.  But  today  the 
cobbler  is  replaced  by  the  great  shoe  factory,  subdivided  into  thirty  or 
forty  distinct  trades;  and  for  the  production  of  shoes  not  one  but  all  of 
these  processes  are  necessary.  The  modern  tool  is  not  the  instrument 
of  the  handicraftsman,  but  the  great  factory  and  all  that  concerns  its 
supply.  The  organization  of  the  worker  to  control  it  must  follow  the 
tool;  and  today  hi  most  indus tries  the  tool  is  rapidly  broadening  out 
from  the  single  machine  to  the  entire  factory.  The  persistence  in  these 
conditions  of  the  older  separate  trade  unions,  organized  hi  days  when 
trade  distinctions  were  far  more  vital  than  they  are  today,  each  trade 
with  its  separate  agreements  well-timed  by  the  employer  to  terminate 
at  different  intervals,  and  thus  prevent  the  occurrence  of  a  strike  of  all 
his  hands  at  one  time;  all  these  conditions  weaken  the  separate  trades, 
and  give  rise  to  that  situation  in  which  half  the  workers  are  "scabbing 
on  the  job"  while  the  other  half  are  out  on  strike.  Suppose  that  the 
collective  agreement  in  the  coal  mining  industry  expires,  and  the  opera- 
ators  refuse  to  renew  it  save  on  lower  terms:  a  situation  which  normally 
produces  a  strike.  The  miners  down  tools,  but  the  operators  rush  more 
or  less  skilled  strike-breakers  from  all  parts  of  the  country  and  manage 
to  get  out  some  coal.  If  the  stationary  or  hoist  engineers  will  only 
strike  too,  the  affair  will  be  a  success,  because  the  engineers  will  be 
exceedingly  difficult  to  replace.  But  they  have  a  contract  that  runs  for 
two  more  years;  they  will  not  go  out,  and  the  strike  is  lost.  After  such 
an  experience  the  miners  recognize  the  great  advantage  they  would 
gain  if  the  engineers  were  only  in  their  union  and  could  if  necessary  be 
withdrawn  to  increase  their  bargaining  power.  Is  it  any  wonder,  there- 
fore, that  the  coal  miners  have  organized  an  industrial  union  that  in- 
cludes all  those  who  work  in  or  around  coal  mines? 

All  industries,  of  course,  are  not  yet  so  fully  industrialized  in  struc- 
ture as  coal  mining;  in  most  the  separate  trade  lines  persist  in  a  signif- 
icant form.  But  in  order  to  organize  an  industry  completely  into  one 
great  group  it  is  not  necessary  for  all  craft  distinctions  thereby  to  be 
obliterated.  Precisely  the  same  result  can  be  obtained  if  the  industrial 
union  is  a  federation  instead  of  a  highly  homogeneous  body.  To  all 
intents  and  purposes  the  four  railroad  brotherhoods  act  as  a  single 
unit  in  any  important  question;  during  the  war  they  united  with  the 
ten  A.  F.  L.  unions  of  the  less  skilled  railroad  workers  to  form  what  is 


Business  Unionism — 7/5  Ideal  and  Its  Implication  187 

known  as  the  fourteen  railway  unions,  and  it  is  clear  that  while  not  sac- 
rificing their  autonomy  these  fourteen  trades  for  all  practical  purposes 
form  a  single  industrial  group  like  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen 
of  Great  Britain.  The  garment  workers,  though  industrially  organ- 
ized and  including  even  the  office  clerks  and  the  draymen  and  truck- 
drivers  who  handle  their  product,  preserve  for  certain  purposes  the 
separate  trade  divisions  of  cutter,  presser,  baster,  and  so  on.  The 
building  trades  have  become  a  unit  with  their  "building  trades  coun- 
cils"; the  past  year  saw  the  most  "craft  autonomous"  of  the  A.  F.  L. 
unions  unite  in  a  joint  national  committee  to  manage  the  steel  strike 
as  a  unit.  The  A.  F.  L.  Trades  Departments  are  increasing  in  impor- 
tance. The  "blanket  agreement,"  in  which  all  the  crafts  in  a  given  in- 
dustry bargain  and  strike  in  unison  and  combine  their  grievances  is 
growing  more  and  more  popular.  All  of  these  are  signs  of  the  realiza- 
tion of  labor  that  in  order  to  carry  out  their  ultimate  aim  of  complete 
organization  and  effective  bargaining  power  they  must  in  some  way 
organize  themselves  with  the  entire  industry  as  a  basis. 

This  is  the  first  aim  of  business  unionism;  the  second,  paradoxical 
as  it  may  seem,  is  for  the  complete  industrial  organization  of  the  em- 
ployers. The  latter  have  in  most  fields  been  quick  enough  to  organize 
for  themselves;  we  saw,  for  instance,  how  the  blacksmiths'  and  mol- 
ders'  unions  of  1859  were  called  forth  directly  by  employers  organizing 
against  labor.  Many  industries  are  in  the  hands  of  so-called  trusts; 
that  is,  not  every  mill  or  factory  is  amalgamated  into  one  large  cor- 
poration, but  in  the  industry  there  is  one  great  company  that  by  its 
size  and  power  dominates  all  other  and  acts  as  their  spokesman  in  all 
important  matters.  Such  is  the  U.  S.  Steel  Corporation,  for  example. 
Most  other  industries  are  united  into  trade  associations  that  exercise 
a  controlling  influence  over  their  members,  speak  for  them  in  time  of 
strike  or  labor  difficulty,  and  effectually  if  not  legally  limit  prices  by 
agreement.  These  range  all  the  way  from  the  close  concert  of  action 
in  the  meat-packing  and  the  anthracite  coal  trade  to  the  less  organic 
and  more  competitive  trades.  Natural  economic  reasons,  the  unprofit- 
ableness of  unrestricted  competition  primarily,  have  prompted  this 
virtual  centralization.  These  associations  have  taken  over  the  func- 
tion of  bargaining  with  the  union  that  on  its  side  controls  the  industry; 
collective  agreements  are  generally  made  between  associations  of 
workers  and  associations  of  employers,  not  with  individual  employers. 
No  single  company  can  afford  to  grant  better  conditions  and  higher 
wages  than  others;  the  competition  would  kill  it.  And  no  single  com- 


1 88  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

pany  is  strong  enough  to  get  better  terms  from  the  union;  if  it  were, 
they  would  be  speedily  enjoyed  by  all  the  others. 

But  there  are  some  industries  where  the  unit  is  relatively  small, 
and  here  the  union  itself  desires  an  employers'  organization  with  which 
to  deal.  In  the  clothing  trade,  in  the  soft  coal  trade,  for  example,  shops 
and  mines  are  fairly  small  and  competition  is  bitter;  a  separate  bar- 
gain with  each  would  be  wearisome,  and  a  series  of  never-ending  shop 
strikes  would  not  be  worth  the  small  advantage  that  might  be  gained 
in  some  places.  In  collective  bargaining  it  is  thus  to  the  interests  of 
both  sides  to  organize  completely  and  deal  as  units  with  the  drawing 
up  and  acceptance  of  wage-scales  and  other  agreements.  The  garment 
unions  have  thus  forced  organization  on  the  reluctant  employers;  but 
now  that  it  has  come,  few  would  care  to  return  to  the  ruinous  days  of 
cut-throat  competition  for  labor.  The  building  trades  similarly  have 
forced  organization  for  builders  for  purposes  of  collective  bargaining. 

The  development,  then,  of  business  unionism  according  to  the  lines 
it  has  marked  out  for  itself,  provided  that  development  could  continue 
in  the  direction  of  least  resistance  with  no  outside  interference,  would 
logically  result  in  the  formation  in  every  important  national  industry 
of  a  group  comprising  all  the  employers  and  another  group  comprising 
all  the  workers,  bargaining  together  on  a  basis  of  equality,  mak- 
ing treaties  and  concluding  agreements.  It  would  be  a  balance 
of  power  in  which  the  undue  growth  in  strength  on  either  side  would 
cause  dislocation  and  friction.  It  would  be  a  business  partnership  be- 
tween two  groups  for  the  continuance  of  the  industry,  in  which  one, 
as  it  were,  would  be  the  active  and  the  other  the  sleeping  partner. 
Such  an  ideal  has  already  been  practically  formulated  in  England  as 
the  Whitley  Joint  National  Councils;  incidentally,  what  it  might  mean 
for  the  rest  of  the  community  is  foreshadowed  in  the  provision  in  the 
constitutions  of  a  number  of  the  Whitley  councils  already  established 
in  England  of  means  "for  the  joint  maintenance  of  selling-prices."1 

Within  this  structure  the  aims  of  business  unionism  would  continue  to 
function.  Security  of  employment — the  first  great  end  of  the  labor  move- 
ment, the  only  safeguard  against  the  haunting  dread  of  starvation— would 
be  the  first  achievement  the  unionists  would  seek.  To  obtain  this,  the 
unionists  would  insist,  as  they  grew  in  power,  on  taking  over  all  con- 
trol over  the  "hiring  and  firing"  of  men;  on  allowing  their  dismissal 
only  for  proved  incompetency  or  dishonesty,  and  then  only  if  some 
other  provision  were  made  by  the  employer  or  society  whereby  it  would 
1  American  Labor  Yearbook,  1920,  358. 


Business  Unionism — Its  Ideal  and  Its  Implication  189 

be  certain  they  would  not  suffer.  The  lack  of  any  such  provision  and 
the  working  class  consciousness  and  solidarity,  together  with  sad  ex- 
perience, in  industries  like  the  garment  trades  where  the  union  has  a 
certain  amount  of  control  over  dismissal,  are  the  direct  causes  of  the 
unions  at  tunes  forcing  the  retention  of  inefficient  or  incompetent 
workers;  as  in  the  federal  service  the  lack  of  any  pension  system  has 
led  humane  department  officials  to  retain  on  the  pay-roll  men  whose 
years  of  faithful  service  have  made  them  incapable  of  further  labor. 

But  in  addition  to  this  virtual  assumption  of  control  over  the  hiring 
and  firing  of  individuals,  business  unionism  in  its  search  for  security 
from  unemployment  as  it  grows  stronger  will  vigorously  protest  against 
the  business  methods  of  laying  off  hands  when  trade  conditions  slump 
or  prices  and  demand  falls  off.  In  the  history  of  the  labor  movement 
the  great  strikes  have  always  taken  place — in  1877,  i*1  1886, — when  the 
employers  at  the  close  of  a  period  of  prosperity  have  sought  to  reduce 
their  labor  force;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  greatest  gain  the 
labor  movement  has  ever  made,  commonly  overlooked  in  the  presence 
of  more  spectacular  considerations,  is  the  way  in  which  the  unions  have 
forced  the  mills  to  keep  on  their  men  in  slack  times.  The  modern  su- 
perintendent shows  that  a  large  reduction  is  sure  to  mean  a  strike;  he 
realizes  that  it  will  cost  less  to  keep  his  men  on  than  to  precipitate  a 
complete  shutdown.  As  business  unionism  with  greater  organization 
attains  greater  real  control  over  industry,  it  will  demand  that  the  supply 
of  labor  be  no  longer  considered  as  a  raw  material  to  be  bought  and 
sold  in  smaller  quantities  in  time  of  decreased  output,  but  rather  as  a 
fixed  charge  upon  the  industry.  The  capitalist  does  not  burn  down  his 
factory  or  allow  it  to  rust  and  rot  during  hard  times;  just  so,  the  business 
union  claims,  he  must  maintain  his  labor  force  in  good  condition  also. 

Not  only  does  the  union  object  to  hard  times;  it  condemns  the  seasonal 
character  of  all  trades  which  run  by  spurts  and  starts.  Already  the 
coal  miners  and  the  garment  workers  are  protesting  against  the  type  of 
management  that  allows  high  speed  overtime  production  when  prices 
are  best,  followed  by  unemployment  and  idleness  when  they  decline; 
the  system  that  postpones  as  late  as  possible  the  production  of  coal  until 
the  fall  and  winter  when  men  will  pay  more  for  it  than  in  spring  and 
summer.  And  of  course  in  thus  calling  for  continuous  employment  and 
production  the  worker  is  directly  contravening  the  interests  of  his  em- 
ployer, which  as  we  have  seen  lie  in  a  very  flexible  labor  supply  capable 
of  delicate  adjustment  to  the  state  of  the  market.  Compelled  to  main- 
tain a  fixed  amount  of  labor,  the  employer  will  lose  great  opportunities 


190  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

for  the  sudden  amassing  of  profits  in  time  of  need  or  the  freedom  from 
the  charges  of  supporting  men  in  time  of  surplus.  Many  employers  do 
not  like  to  throw  their  men  out  of  work,  especially  if  they  adopt  the 
benevolent  paternalism  which  regards  the  giving  of  employment  as  a 
laudable  charity;  and  some  even  hesitate  to  dismiss  them  at  a  direct 
loss  to  themselves.  But  no  employer  today  ever  carries  this  benevo- 
lence very  far;  in  the  words  of  a  recent  trust  president  when  shutting 
down  his  woolen  mills,  uWe  can  not  afford  to  keep  men  on  without  a 
certain  number  of  orders." 

Finally,  with  continuous  steady  employment  assured,  the  business 
union  will  seek  a  high  standard  of  living,  just  as  high  as  it  can  extort 
when  it  comes  to  making  treaties  with  the  employers'  organization.  No 
business  man  ever  voluntarily  curtailed  the  golden  inflow  of  profits  so 
long  as  they  lasted;  no  business  man,  though  he  might  assert,  and 
assert  it  truly,  that  he  was  "  making  so  much  money  he  didn't  know  what 
to  do  with  it,"  ever  thought  of  making  less.  He  rather  went  on  to 
prove  his  assertion  by  inordinate  luxury.  Not  even  Henry  Ford,  philan- 
thropic and  well-disposed  as  he  is,  inclined  to  let  his  employees  share  to 
some  extent  the  gold  mine  he  has  discovered,  has  yet  proposed  to  make 
machines  at  cost.  And  no  business  unionist  will  ever  stop,  if  he  has  the 
power,  raising  his  wages  just  as  high  as  he  possibly  can.  The  only  limit 
to  the  size  of  the  "fair  day's  pay"  he  asks  is  the  limit  to  his  power  to 
secure  it.  Labor  is  insatiable;  it  will  never  stop  in  its  demands  until 
it  is  forced  to  by  some  outside  power. 

Such  is  the  ideal  of  respectable  and  conservative  labor  unions,  an 
ideal  not  clearly  seen  as  yet  by  all  advocates  of  economic  opportunism, 
but  yet  the  ideal  to  which  all  the  tendencies  of  business  unionism  point 
as  its  logical  development  and  full  flowering.  This  is  the  ideal  type  of 
the  business  union,  the  " perfect"  union.  Partnership  with  capital, 
security  of  tenure,  ever  increasing  wages — such  is  the  outcome  of  col- 
lective bargaining.  But  it  is  not  the  whole  picture.  Such  an  apotheosis 
of  the  business  union  has  several  further  and  highly  edifying  implica- 
tions, implications  which  on  the  whole  do  not  tend  to  relieve  a  scene 
otherwise  fairly  sombre  enough. 

For  the  Utopia  of  the  business  unionist  is  a  rigid  and  static  society, 
a  society  made  up  of  dozens  of  great  antagonists  in  pairs,  eyeing  each 
other  in  every  industry  jealously  and  bitterly,  a  society  incapable  of 
adaptation  either  to  the  genuine  needs  of  the  community  or  to  any 
changed  process  of  industrial  technique.  It  is  a  society  based  on  a 
precarious  balance  of  power  which  renders  any  change  possible  only 


Business  Unionism — 7/5  Ideal  and  Us  Implication  191 

at  the  price  of  a  terrific  industrial  struggle.  Just  as  for  the  past  century 
the  map  of  Europe  could  be  changed  to  correspond  with  newly  awakened 
nationalistic  and  commercial  exigencies  which  had  been  wholly  dormant 
in  1815  when  it  was  laid  out,  only  through  the  dreaded  course  of  war; 
just  as  the  seething  mass  of  eastern  Europe  and  the  Hapsburg  Empire 
could  only  attain  that  realignment  without  which  life  was  intolerable 
to  its  inhabitants  through  precipitating  a  deadly  and  destructive  struggle 
over  the  entire  globe:  just  so  the  Utopia  of  the  business  union  would 
prove  an  iron  cage  preventing  the  free  development  of  social  and  eco- 
nomic forces. 

For  business  unionism  ultimately  means  stagnation.  As  both  sides, 
organized  labor  and  organized  capital,  grow  in  power,  collective  bar- 
gaining is  extended  to  more  and  more  minute  details.  Agreements 
necessitate  a  more  and  more  complicated  regulation  of  rates,  wages, 
scales,  and  conditions,  a  regulation  exceedingly  difficult  to  work  out 
and  agree  upon,  and  even  more  difficult  to  change.  Hoxie  gives  an 
excellent  account  of  the  increasing  elaborateness  of  these  details.  "  The 
employer  is  constantly  endeavoring  to  reintroduce  individual  bar- 
gaining and  to  force  down  the  wage  rate  and  to  increase  the  exertion 
and  output  for  a  given  wage  by  indirect  and  specific  encroachments  on 
the  existing  status,  for  instance,  by  slight  changes  in  method  and  process, 
by  creating  conditions  which  require  slightly  greater  exertion  or  ir- 
regular home  work  and  overtime;  by  division  of  processes  and  redis- 
tribution of  work,  by  changes  hi  tools,  by  changes  in  mode  of  pay- 
ment, and  by  arbitrary  fines  and  exactions.  These  changes  for  the 
most  part  have  the  effect  of  increasing  work  or  reducing  pay.  In  the 
absence  of  clearly  defined  standards  they  are  easy  to  introduce  and  are 
often  introduced  so  as  to  result  in  reductions  without  knowledge  of 
this  effect  by  the  workers,  and  the  individual  worker  alone  is  usually 
too  weak,  even  if  he  does  recognize  their  effect,  to  resist  them.  It  is  a 
method  of  f orcing  workers  to  compete  against  one  another  without  their 
knowledge.  These  encroachments  mean,  therefore,  undercutting  and  a 
progressive  reduction  of  wage  rates,  and  conditions  of  employment.1 

"The  only  way  to  prevent  this  is  to  have  all  the  incidents  of  work 
and  pay  most  minutely  and  clearly  specified  and  this  specification 
rigorously  maintained.  .  .  .  Many  minute  and  harassing  specifications 
are  laid  down  especially  in  regard  to  kinds  of  work  that  may  be  done, 
by  each  worker,  modes  of  doing  work,  times  and  modes  of  payment, 
deductions  and  exactions,  times  of  beginning  and  ending  of  work,  ma- 
1  Hoxie,  Trade  Unionism  in  the  United  States,  257. 


19 2  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

chinery,  materials,  objectionable  work,  etc.  ...  It  is  evident  that 
these  standards  can  not  be  maintained  effectively  so  far  as  all  the 
workers  are  concerned  if  the  employer  is  allowed  to  adopt  at  will  changes 
in  methods  and  processes  of  work.  Such  changes  make  it  possible  for 
the  employer  to  create  new  tasks  and  jobs  for  which  no  standards  or 
uniformities  have  been  established,  to  lop  off  parts  of  the  work  from 
the  old  standardized  classes,  along  with  laying  off  the  workman  him- 
self, and  hi  both  ways  to  create  new  classes  of  workers  with  new  con- 
ditions of  work,  and  perhaps  lower  rates  of  pay  for  all  the  members  of 
the  group,  to  prevent  the  degradation  of  skilled  workers  and  the  in- 
troduction into  their  midst  of  subgroups  in  which  competition  exists, 
they  must  prevent  the  introduction  of  such  new  conditions  of  work — 
the  creation  of  new  tasks  and  jobs  and  new  classification  of  the  workers — 
except  under  their  control  and  under  conditions  that  will  secure  on  the 
new  jobs  conditions  of  work  and  pay  uniform  with  the  old.  .  .  .  Hence, 
in  part,  the  union  tendency  to  resist  new  trades,  new  machinery,  new 
methods  and  processes."  1 

The  agreements  in  some  industries  today  are  the  product  of  months  of 
labor  and  comprise  whole  volumes  of  figures  and  stipulations;  it  is  said 
that  in  the  Lancashire  cotton  trade  experts  give  their  entire  lives  to  the 
working  out  of  such  scales,  and  even  then  but  imperfectly  understand  the 
great  mass  of  detail.  When  it  is  remembered  that  each  major  provision 
represents  a  compromise  arrived  at  only  after  hours  of  argument  and 
expostulation;  that  at  any  time  disagreement  in  the  formulation  of  a  new 
contract  may  mean  a  complete  tie-up  of  the  industry;  that  any  new 
process  or  method  would  irrevocably  wreck  the  entire  list; — it  is  no 
wonder  that  both  employer  and  worker  come  to  the  conclusion  that  new 
inventions  or  changes  would  cost  far  more  in  the  process  of  readjustment 
than  they  would  ever  be  worth.  Such  a  condition  means  of  course  the 
curbing  of  the  initiative  of  both  worker  and  manager,  the  rejection  of 
\  new  inventions  and  more  efficient  methods,  and  in  general  the  reestablish- 
]  ment  of  all  those  restrictive  and  deadening  regulations  which  marked  the 
decay  of  the  guild  control  of  industry.  The  only  way  out  of  this  economic 
stagnation  would  be  the  replacement  of  collective  agreement,  which  is  a 
treaty  making  process,  with  all  of  the  faults  and  none  of  the  virtues 
diplomacy  displays,  by  a  process  of  genuine  legislation:  the  careful  ad- 
justment of  new  conditions  and  new  processes  to  the  needs  of  the  worker. 
But  such  a  process  implies  a  genuine  control  by  the  worker  over  the  actual 
conduct  of  industry,  and  that  industrial  control  far  transcends  the  limits 

1  Hoxie,  op.  cit.,  290. 


Business  Unionism — Its  Ideal  and  Its  Implication  193 

of  business  unionism.  Here  again  business  unionism  contains  within 
itself  the  tendencies  which  will  make  it  inevitably  develop  into  something 
quite  different.  With  all  the  processes  and  standards  minutely  deter- 
mined, the  workers  would  subside  into  a  state  of  contentment  and  self- 
satisfaction;  the  determining  of  complicated  agreements  would  not 
interest  them.  All  such  matters  the  business  agent  would  tend  to,  and 
insure  the  steady  supply  of  wages  whether  the  worker  was  busy  or  idle, 
whether  times  were  good  or  bad.  His  union  would  of  necessity  become  a 
bureaucracy  which  denied  him  any  effective  voice  or  responsibility;  and 
the  employer,  with  every  interest  in  keeping  him  from  demanding  more 
and  more,  would  probably  adapt  a  policy  of  benevolent  paternalism  and 
charge  the  cost  up  to  the  community.  Visions  of  a  capitalistic  state  on 
some  such  model  levying  tribute  on  the  more  undeveloped  portions  of  the 
globe  are  quite  familiar,  thanks  to  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc  and  others;  if  the 
days  of  the  grandeur  (and  decline)  of  Rome  were  imitated  in  this  respect, 
history  might  well  repeat  itself  also  in  the  panem  et  cir  censes  to  the 
unionists.  The  unions  would  be  the  most  conservative  groups  in  the 
country,  as  they  were  when  the  guilds  reigned,  with  no  social  idealism,  no 
sympathy  or  regard  for  any  group  outside  their  own  small  circle.  Status 
they  would  have  achieved,  status  equal  to  their  fellows;  like  the  French 
rentier  peasantry  they  would  be  permanently  satisfied  with  the  status 
quo  so  long  as  they  could  suck  more  and  more  profits  out  of  the  owner  of 
the  industry.  Equality,  yes — but  no  liberty  and  no  social  or  even  class 
solidarity — nothing  but  prejudices. 

This  picture  is  purposely  extreme;  not  for  a  moment  do  we  believe 
that  such  a  state  of  affairs  is  either  desired  by  any  man,  unionist  or 
capitalist,  or  that  it  could  ever  come  to  pass.  Surely  in  our  exposition 
the  inconsistencies,  the  opposing  tendencies,  must  be  already  apparent. 
Yet  such  a  state  has  been  closely  enough  approached  in  a  very  few  con- 
servative unions,  notably  the  glass  workers,  the  pattern  makers,  and,  till 
a  few  years  ago,  the  railroad  brotherhoods,  to  give  us  food  for  thought. 
The  purpose  in  thus  sketching  an  ideal  or  completely  developed  business 
unionism,  by  following  the  logical  implications  of  the  aims  and  principles 
on  which  the  business  union  of  today  operates,  has  been  to  reveal  both 
the  inadequacy  of  those  ideals  and  the  impossibility  of  business  unionism 
developing  very  much  further  along  the  lines  it  has  hitherto  traversed. 

For  this  has  been  the  sum  and  substance  of  our  contention  throughout 
the  examination  of  the  conservative  or  business  trade  union.  It  can  never 
achieve  the  ideal  which  it  has  set  for  itself,  because  in  the  very  progress 
toward  that  goal  it  is  bound  to  transform  itself  into  something  very 


iQ4  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

different  indeed.  Business  unionism,  in  fact,  carries  within  itself  the  seed 
of  its  own  destruction,  and  it  is  now  our  task  to  sum  up  those  tendencies 
which  make  it  not  only  possible  but  highly  probable  that  the  group 
individualism  which  to  a  large  extent  characterizes  the  union  movement 
of  today  is  through  the  fuller  development  of  its  present  motives  and  aims 
destined  to  be  transformed. 

Business  unionism  is  based  on  a  balance  of  bargaining  power.  Bargains 
can  only  take  place  between  equals.  That  is  why  the  unions  have  insisted 
on  collective  rather  than  individual  bargains,  in  which  the  employer's 
power  is  so  markedly  disproportionate  to  that  of  the  worker  that  to  use 
the  word  bargain  at  all  is  a  mere  travesty.  But  suppose  the  power  of  the 
organized  workers  grows  until  it  is  the  employer  who  is  the  weaker; 
suppose  he  becomes  so  much  the  weaker  that  his  function  is  but  to  agree 
to  whatever  terms  the  workers  are  willing  to  grant?  What  then  becomes 
of  the  collective  bargain,  and  of  the  business  ideal  founded  thereon? 
Many  manufacturers  are  already  complaining  of  what  they  call  the 
"autocracy  of  labor,"  by  which  they  mean  of  course  that  control  of  the 
industry  is  passing  from  their  hands  to  their  employees,  and  that  they 
can  no  longer  run  their  own  business  to  suit  themselves.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  with  each  new  advance  towards  its  business  goal,  with  each  new 
accretion  of  strength,  the  business  union  tends  to  upset  the  balance  of 
bargaining  power  upon  which,  like  the  peace  of  the  system  of  theoretically 
equal  and  independent  European  states,  its  treaty  power  and  processes 
depends. 

In  the  first  place,  complete  organization,  that  goal  of  the  business 
union,  implies,  as  has  been  seen,  under  modern  industrial  conditions,  if 
not  a  single  great  industrial  union,  at  least  a  single  federation  of  unions 
acting  as  a  unit  for  each  large  industry  or  vocation.  This  means  that  the 
workers  would  cease  to  think  and  act  in  terms  of  their  particular  job  or 
trade,  which  necessarily  tends  to  obscure  their  vision  of  the  industrial 
process  as  a  whole,  and  think  and  plan  rather  for  the  entire  productive 
unit.  The  hoist  engineer,  organized  as  a  separate  craft,  thinks  only  in 
terms  of  the  hours,  wages,  and  conditions  pertaining  to  that  craft;  but 
organized  as  a  part  of  all  the  other  workers  in  or  about  the  coal  mine, 
the  whole  body  of  United  Mine  Workers,  in  the  normal  course  of  con- 
sidering wages  and  hours,  is  led  to  regard  them  as  they  affect  and  are 
affected  by  coal  mining  as  a  whole.  Hence  they  have  been  naturally 
drawn  to  consider  the  further  and  more  fundamental  causes  of  their 
insecurity  and  low  standard  of  living,  and  to  assail  the  inefficiency  and 
waste  entailed  by  methods  of  operation  in  jumps  and  spurts.  A  single 


Business  Unionism — Its  Ideal  and  Its  Implication  195 

craft  neither  desires  nor  can  presume  to  dictate  any  general  industrial 
policies;  but  a  union  organized  on  the  industrial  basis  is  not  only  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  exercising  direct  control  over  the  conduct 
of  the  enterprise,  but  as  it  grows  in  power  it  will  inevitably  be  led,  what- 
ever its  proclamation  of  adherence  to  the  pure  milk  of  business  unionism, 
to  assume  more  and  more  of  the  functions  of  the  present  employer. 
Under  these  conditions  it  is  not  surprising  that  thousands  of  unionists  at 
the  present  day  are  consciously  abandoning  business  unionism,  and 
instead  of  a  simple  demand  for  a  division  of  the  profits  are  putting  for- 
ward a  demand  for  an  increasing  control  and  regulation  of  the  conduct  of 
the  industry.  And  with  the  motive  of  individual  advantage  thus  necessi- 
tating a  great  emphasis  on  the  purposes  and  processes  of  production,  the 
double  strain  is  placing  greater  and  greater  emphasis  on  the  social  conse- 
quences and  implications  of  production. 

Thus  it  can  confidently  be  predicted  that  if  the  unions  increase  in 
power  they  will  of  necessity  tend  to  assume  more  and  more  of  direct  con- 
trol over  the  industry;  just  as  confidently  it  can  be  said  there  is  no  limit 
to  their  demand  for  a  higher  standard  of  living.  Mr.  Gompers  has  said, 
as  has  already  been  quoted,  "  We  do  not  set  any  particular  standard,  but 
work  for  the  best  possible  conditions  immediately  obtainable  for  the 
workers.  When  these  are  obtained  then  we  strive  for  better.  The  work- 
ing people  will  not  stop  when  any  particular  point  is  reached;  they  will 
never  stop  in  their  efforts  to  obtain  a  better  life  for  themselves,  for  their 
wives,  for  their  children,  for  all  humanity."  1  In  this  opinion  he  finds 
himself  at  one  with  William  Z.  Foster,  secretary  treasurer  of  the  National 
Committee  for  Organizing  Iron  and  Steel  Workers  during  the  recent  steel 
strike.  "  It  is  idle  to  say  that  the  trade  unions  will  rest  content  with  any- 
thing short  of  actual  emancipation.  For  they  are  as  insatiable  as  the 
veriest  so-called  revolutionary  unions.  In  the  measure  that  their  strength 
increases,  so  do  their  demands.  They  have  sent  wages  up:  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7, 
8,  dollars  per  day,  and  hours  down:  12,  n,  10,  9,  8,  7,  6,  per  day  with  all 
kinds  of  other  concessions  sandwiched  in  between.  And  now  they  are 
more  radical  in  their  demands  than  ever  before  in  their  history.  Perma- 
nently satisfied  trade  unions  under  capitalism  would  be  the  eighth  wonder 
of  the  world,  outrivalling  in  interest  the  famous  hanging  gardens  of 
Babylon.  They  would  be  impossible.  With  its  growing  power,  Organ- 
ized Labor  will  go  on  winning  greater  and  greater  concessions,  regardless 
of  how  profound  they  may  be."  2 

1  Gompers,  The  American  Labor  Movement. 

2  Foster,  The  Great  Steel  Strike,  257. 


196  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

With  these  two  men,  the  leader  of  the  so-called  conservative  wing  of 
the  American  labor  movement  and  a  representative  of  the  more  radical 
section  of  the  orthodox  body,  in  perfect  agreement  as  to  the  real  meaning 
of  the  slogan  "  A  fair  day's  work  for  a  fair  day's  pay,"  any  notion  that  the 
business  union  would  ever  stop  if  it  had  the  power  to  extort  more  from  the 
employer  is  quite  futile.  Even  if,  as  was  suggested  above,  the  employers' 
and  the  workers'  organizations  united  to  increase  joint  profits,  with  every 
gain  of  strength  the  workers  would  demand  the  lion's  share.  And  with 
this  insatiable  appetite  for  more  meeting  them  at  every  turn,  with  all 
control  of  "  their  own  business"  taken  out  of  their  hands,  through  minute 
regulation  or  through  actual  control  by  the  worker:  it  would  indeed  be 
foolish  for  the  capitalists  if  they  did  not  urge  some  form  of  nationalization 
or  other  scheme  that  would  give  them  a  secure  and  permanent  income.  It 
is  a  question  at  present  whether  most  of  the  stock-holders  in  the  railroads 
of  this  country  really  would  not  prefer  government  operation  and  control 
with  a  guaranteed  rate  of  interest  to  the  present  prospects  of  increasing 
rate  regulation  and  ''labor  domination."  In  England,  where  the  labor 
movement  has  attained  much  greater  power,  there  are  many  industries 
that  would  thus  welcome  the  advent  of  what  is  called  "  state  capitalism." 
Those  captains  of  industry  who  have  latterly  become  rather  captains  of 
finance  would  lose  interest  in  the  operations  of  the  stock  markets  so  soon 
as  the  demand  of  the  worker  for  security  had  put  a  stop  to  the  possibility 
of  flexibly  adapting  industrial  conditions  to  the  business  market.  And 
any  such  proposal  for  nationab'zation  with  or  without  control  by  the 
unions  would  of  necessity  entirely  transform  the  aims  and  functions  of 
the  business  union. 

The  growing  power  of  the  business  union  and  of  the  labor  movement 
in  general  will  either  continue  to  be  exercised  solely  for  the  interests  of 
the  group,  or  it  will  broaden  its  amis  so  as  to  include  in  addition  to 
the  group  interest  the  comprehension  of  the  needs  of  society  as  a  whole, 
of  the  consumers  in  general.  If  this  power  were  exercised  for  purely 
selfish  interests,  society  would  be  forced  to  place  upon  it  some  sort  of 
restrictions  and  limitations,  such  as  are  now  thrown  about  public  utili- 
ties. It  might  even  go  so  far  as  to  penalize  strikes  solely  for  group  in- 
terests. But  where  the  worker  is  denied  the  right  to  strike,  the  most 
conservative  business  unions  becomes  ipso  facto  revolutionary  and  law- 
breaking,  seeking  to  change  at  least  certain  aspects  of  the  social  system; 
and  once  shaken  out  of  its  shell  the  business  union  would  be  forced  to 
embark  either  politically  or  otherwise  into  still  further  policies  which, 
inasmuch  as  they  could  necessarily  be  social  rather  than  group,  would 


Business  Unionism — 7/5  Ideal  and  Its  Implication  197 

so  transform  the  business  union  as  to  make  its  features  unrecognizable. 
This  is  the  penalty  for  attempting  to  curb  by  legal  means  the  actions 
of  the  labor  movement;  when  all  activities  and  policies  become  ''sub- 
versive," the  workers  will  naturally  have  no  scruples  in  choosing  the 
most  advantageous,  and  thus  legal  assaults  upon  radicalism  prove  only 
to  be  boomerangs. 

On  the  other  hand,  even  if  the  political  government  made  no  such  at- 
tempt at  social  regulation,  the  possession  of  power  is  an  almost  irresist- 
ible temptation  to  use  it.  It  is  an  immensely  salutary  educative  force, 
tending  to  call  out  aims  much  more  fundamental  than  those  comprised 
in  collective  bargaining.  With  the  interest  and  thought  of  the  worker 
centered  on  production  as  a  social  function,  he  will,  if  it  seems  more 
advantageous  to  himself  and  to  the  consumer,  stop  at  no  change  in  the 
economic  structure  of  society  that  he  has  the  power  to  effect.  If  the 
wage-system  meets  with  his  disapproval,  he  will  replace  it  by  some  other 
more  efficient  method  of  production;  if  the  private  ownership  of  the 
means  of  production  and  the  right  of  property  itself  fall  under  his 
censure,  he  will  supersede  them  with  other  forms  of  control  and  other 
types  of  rights. 

That  even  the  most  conservative  unions  are  in  no  sense  bound  to  the 
safe  and  sane  principles  of  business  unionism  it  requires  but  a  slight 
acquaintance  with  the  events  of  recent  years  to  convince.  The  unions 
of  Great  Britain,  especially  the  so-called  "Big  Three"  or  " Triple  Alli- 
ance," of  the  railwaymen,  the  mine  workers,  and  the  transport  workers, 
are  at  present  enjoying  so  much  power  that  they  literally  have  not 
awakened  to  its  potentialities.  Relying  on  general  public  disgust  with 
parliamentary  government  as  carried  on  by  khaki  elections  and  coali- 
tions, they  have  appointed  themselves  the  tribunes  of  the  people,  and 
sought  by  direct  action  to  attain  purely  political  ends.  They  have 
attempted  to  make  their  voice  felt  in  both  the  foreign  and  the  domestic 
policies  of  the  British  Empire;  and,  it  is  edifying  to  note,  the  British 
government  generally  decides  to  abopt  a  certain  course  of  action  fairly 
soon  after  the  Big  Three  have  demanded  it  in  a  pronunciamento.  To 
many,  even  to  those  who  approve  the  individual  policies  which  the 
British  unionists  are  seeking  to  enforce,  this  seems  fraught  with  the  ut- 
most danger;  but  its  significance  here  is  merely  to  make  plain  how  the 
control  of  very  large  power  can  lead  business  unions  outside  their  own 
private  interests  to  demand  sweeping  changes  in  the  social  structure. 
For  it  was  but  ten  years  ago  that  the  British  unions  were  notoriously 
conservative  and  dominated  by  group  individualism,  even  more  so 


igS  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

than  those  of  our  own  country.  But  then  occurred  reorganization  and 
new  inspiration  from  the  industrialists,  and  today  the  British  unionists 
hold  in  their  hands  inestimable  opportunity  for  either  good  or  ill. 

Or  take  the  example  of  Germany.  After  the  Kapp  revolution  it  was 
Karl  Legien  and  the  conservative  unions  who  held  the  only  real  power 
in  the  country.  The  Ebert  government  was  preserved,  but  it  was  pre- 
served only  because  the  unionists  wanted  it.  The  general  strike  that 
defeated  Kapp  put  in  Legien's  hands  the  virtual  dictatorship  of  Germany; 
he  gave  the  power  back  to  Ebert,  but  he  realized,  and  the  German  un- 
ionists realized,  that  it  was  he  and  not  Ebert  who  dominated  the  situa- 
tion. 

Or  if  we  turn  to  America  itself,  where  the  relatively  slighter  strength 
of  the  labor  movement  has  tended  to  restrain  both  the  assumption 
and  the  exercise  of  power,  we  have  but  to  consider  how  the  Plumb  Plan, 
worked  out  by  Mr.  Glenn  Plumb  and  his  associates  as  a  purely  "business  " 
and  "practical"  solution  to  the  railroad  problem,  with  never  a  thought  as 
to  possible  underlying  social  theories,  was  taken  up  by  the  conservative 
railroad  brotherhoods,  hi  America  the  very  type  of  the  business  union, 
and  adopted  by  a  ninety  per  cent  majority.  The  conscious  aim  of  effi- 
cient and  economic  operation  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  needs  of  the 
community  is  assuredly  a  far  cry  from  the  older  aims  of  business 
unionism. 

Therefore,  from  all  these  causes,  from  the  assumption  of  more  and 
more  control  over  the  actual  conduct  of  industry,  from  the  demand 
for  greater  and  greater  returns  that  will  make  it  more  profitable  to  the 
employer  to  submit  to  social  regulation  and  its  attendant  social  guaran- 
tee of  income,  from  the  simple  growth  of  power  itself,  the  business  union 
will  find  itself  hi  a  situation  where  its  original  aim  of  collective  bar- 
gaining for  the  profits  of  industry  will  be  far  transcended.  Just  as  surely 
as  the  community  is  bound  to  become  more  and  more  industrialized, 
the  labor  movement  is  bound  to  grow  in  strength,  in  numbers,  and  in 
power.  We  are  prone,  perhaps,  to  regard  the  industrial  revolution  as 
an  event  that  occurred  in  England  in  the  century  between  1750  and  1850, 
and  later  took  place  hi  other  lands  in  a  much  shorter  time.  This  im- 
pression is  totally  erroneous.'  The  industrial  revolution  did  indeed 
start  in  England  about  1750;  but  it  has  kept  up  ever  since,  growing 
more  and  more  extensive,  more  and  more  intensive,  and  more  and  more 
rapid  in  its  movement  with  every  year.  Far  from  slowing  up,  the  in- 
dustrial revolution  is  proceeding  with  greater  and  greater  acceleration. 
And  until  that  revolution  halts  the  labor  movement  will  continue  to 


Business  Unionism— Its  Ideal  and  Its  Implication  199 

grow  in  numbers  and  in  power;  and  with  its  growth  the  transformation 
of  business  unionism  will  be  inevitable. 

The  business  union,  then,  according  to  all  present  indications,  will 
continue  to  grow  in  strength.  That  strength  will  be  exerted  in  channels 
that  are  anti-social  unless  it  is  allowed  to  function  through  channels 
socially  directed  toward  social  ends.  This  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  ( 
our  investigation  of  the  typical  union  of  the  last  twenty  years,  the  busi- 
ness trade  union. 


ii.  INFIDELS  AND  HERETICS— ALIEN  PHILOSOPHIES  AND 
THEIR  EFFECTS  ON  THE  AMERICAN  LABOR  MOVEMENT 

BEFORE  continuing  with  our  examination  of  the  new  unionism  to  which 
the  typical  business  union  of  the  last  generation  seems  to  be  approach- 
ing, both  hi  order  to  comprehend  it  fully  and  to  make  our  survey  of 
the  various  philosophies  and  attitudes  that  have  come  into  prominence 
in  the  American  labor  movement  at  all  adequate,  we  must  pause  for  a 
moment  to  consider  the  effect  on  the  old  traditional  American  agricul- 
tural ideal  of  democracy  of  the  great  mass  of  foreigners  from  other  lands 
and  other  intellectual  atmospheres  and  traditions,  and  of  the  alien 
philosophies  originally  developed  to  meet  conditions  quite  different 
from  those  obtaining  in  the  United  States.  These  are  the  infidels— 
those  who,  born  in  another  faith,  steadfastly  refuse  to  be  converted  to 
the  true  doctrine  of  the  Fathers  of  the  constitution,  the  faith  which, 
for  all  the  higher  criticism  bestowed  upon  it  in  recent  years,  certainly 
remains  in  its  fundamental  dogmas  the  faith  of  the  great  body  of  Ameri- 
can workers.  Then  there  are  also  the  heretics — those  whom,  just  be- 
cause they  have  turned  apostate  and  after  having  once  been  in  the  fold 
have  gone  astray,  the  mother  church  persecutes  even  more  bitterly 
than  the  infidel  who,  after  all,  is  hardly  to  blame  for  his  misfortune  of 
being  born  in  another  community. 

In  general  the  great  and  tremendous  influx  of  foreign  immigration, 
a  labor  phenomenon  that  no  other  country  has  ever  experienced  in  such 
a  diversity  and  to  such  an  extent,  has  exerted  little  direct  but  great  in- 
direct influence  on  the  development  of  labor  ideals  and  ways  of  think- 
ing. The  absorption  of  the  great  stream  of  aliens  into  the  native  Ameri- 
can movement  has  been  most  remarkable,  when  the  fact  is  considered 
that  some  sixty  per  cent  of  the  workers  in  our  basic  industries  have  been 
born  in  other  lands.  There  is  already  little  discoverable  difference  be- 
tween the  attitude  of  the  descendents  of  the  immigrants  from  Northern 
Europe,  the  Irish,  Scotch,  German,  and  Scandinavian,  and  that  of  New 
Englanders  who  came  over  in  the  Mayflower;  and,  alarmists  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding,  the  younger  generation,  and  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  older  generation,  of  workers  from  the  south  and  east  of 
Europe  have  already  adopted  most  of  the  virtues,  together  with  most  of 
the  vices,  of  the  American  type  of  mind.  But  in  certain  of  our  great 


Infidels  and  Heretics  201 

cities,  where  the  foreign-born  congregate  together  in  colonies  of  their 
own,  there  is  enough  group  sentiment  left  to  cause  the  development  of 
philosophies  that  have  become  rooted  in  the  homeland  whence  the  group 
has  come. 

The  immigrant  comes  from  a  stratified  society  in  which  class  con- 
sciousness has  been  drilled  into  him  for  centuries  back.  He  belongs  to 
the  lower  class,  to  the  peasantry,  generally;  not  for  him  is  it  to  aspire 
to  take  his  place  as  an  equal  among  the  lords  of  the  earth.  He  must 
toil  and  labor  as  his  forbears  toiled  and  labored;  he  may,  indeed,  cherish 
hopes  of  raising  his  entire  class  to  a  somewhat  better  position,  but  that 
he  should  rise  out  of  his  class  is  unthinkable.  But  when  he  arrives  in 
America  he  believes  all  this  will  be  changed.  There  are  there  no  classes, 
no  peasants,  no  masters;  he  does  not  exactly  expect  to  pick  up  gold  in 
the  streets,  of  course,  but  he  still  looks  upon  America  as  the  land  of 
wonderful  opportunities.  American  democracy  is  seen  through  a  rosy 
haze  which,  perhaps,  leads  the  simple  peasant  of  Sicily  or  the  harassed 
Jew  of  Poland  to  expect  more  than  it  can  possibly  give.  Of  late  years 
there  have  come,  of  course,  disturbing  reports  back  home  that  all  is 
not  quite  so  glorious  as  it  has  been  painted;  but  nevertheless  the  im- 
migrant still  feels,  and  feels  rightly,  that  in  certain  respects  at  least 
America  must  be  preferable  to  the  conditions  under  which  he  has 
been  living. 

But  when  he  arrives  in  the  slums  of  our  great  cities,  or  in  some  squalid 
mining  or  mill  town,  he  is  doomed  to  the  disillusionment  that  follows 
every  too  optimistic  hope.  The  real  benefits  America  offers,  those 
intangible  things  that  only  time  can  bring  home,  seem  to  him  remote, 
and  may  even  fade  away  in  the  distance  with  his  disappointment  in 
the  hope  of  material  prosperity.  His  wages  are  indeed  more  in  a  week 
than  he  formerly  earned  in  a  month;  but  so  are  prices,  and  in  exchange 
for  the  free  life  of  the  peasant  he  has  the  unceasing  monotony  of  factory 
or  mine  labor.  True,  he  is  immune  from  the  incursions  of  the  Tsar's 
Cossacks,  free  to  do  what  he  will;  but  if  perchance  he  live  in  Western 
Pennsylvania  this  freedom  may  seem  somewhat  unreal.  If  he  has  not 
expected  too  much,  he  will  assuredly  be  satisfied,  and  voice,  as  so  many 
of  our  newly  made  Americans  have  voiced,  the  gratitude  which  he  feels 
toward  a  land  that,  with  all  its  faults,  offers  opportunities  undreamed 
of  in  Eastern  Europe;  but  if  he  has,  and  most  immigrants  fall  into  the 
latter  class,  he  will  be  the  prey  of  disillusion. 

This  disillusion  can  have  two  effects.  It  can  breed  a  frank  and  some- 
what Bitter  cynicism,  which  determines  him  to  play  the -game  as  Ameri- 


202  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

cans  play  it,  to  beat  them  if  possible,  and  to  rise  to  the  top  in  the  ruthless 
methods  of  business.  Thus  he  becomes  absorbed  in  the  American  labor 
movement,  follows  its  shrewd  business  methods,  and  extracts  all  he  can 
from  his  employer.  If  he  is  successful,  he  rises,  in  some  small  way  at 
first,  to  the  employing  class  himself,  and  far  outdoes  the  native  American 
in  grasping  and  driving  oppression;  the  sweatshop  contractors  were 
nearly  all  just  this  type  of  successful  immigrant. 

Or  the  sense  of  disillusionment  instead  of  throwing  the  foreigner 
headlong  into  the  business  struggle,  may  lead  to  a  total  rejection  of  the 
whole  American  theory,  in  its  business  or  its  trade  union  formulation, 
and  send  him  to  radical  theories  born  of  the  conditions  of  the  lands  he 
has  left  and  well  nourished  in  his  new  country.  In  industrial  matters, 
he  says,  America  is  far  worse  than  the  monarchy  I  came  from;  all  gov- 
ernments are  alike,  and  must  give  way  to  something  else.  His  foreign 
birth  emphasizes  the  class  consciousness  he  already  feels;  if  he  is  an 
Italian  or  a  Jew  or  a  "Hunky"  he  knows  that  the  people  on  top  regard 
him  as  of  almost  another  species  from  themselves,  and  with  an  ill-con- 
cealed disgust  despise  him  for  being  different.  He  becomes,  quite 
naturally,  a  revolutionary,  inspired  by  a  fanatical  doctrinaire  social 
idealism.  It  is  the  "system"  that  is  to  blame,  the  great,  impersonal 
octopus  reaching  out  everywhere  to  seize  him  with  its  tentacles;  some- 
how, he  feels  certain,  if  only  the  system  were  thrown  off  or  destroyed 
or  broken  up  (he  is  not  quite  certain  just  which  term  applies)  than  all 
his  problems  would  solve  themselves.  Just  a  simple  remedy,  a  single 
law  or  two,  and  his  vision  of  America  as  the  land  of  golden  opportunity 
would  then  come  true.  Since  the  solution  seems  so  utterly  and  abso- 
lutely simple  to  him,  he  cannot  but  feel  that  those  who  do  not  enthusi- 
astically embrace  it  are  conspiring  with  the  system  to  keep  him  down; 
organized  labor,  in  its  indifference  to  his  remedy,  must  be  corrupt  and 
bought  by  the  capitalists. 

So  the  more  intelligent  young  foreign-born  worker  may  become  a 
revolutionary  of  one  persuasion  or  another,  and  sets  off  on  his  crusade 
only  to  be  confirmed  by  opposition  in  the  Tightness  of  his  views.  But 
the  majority  of  the  workers  are  perhaps  too  unintelligent  to  do  more 
than  follow  any  leader  who  appears  to  offer  them  hope  of  relief  from 
their  present  discontents,  and  thus  are  readily  absorbed  into  whatever 
orthodox  business  union  thinks  it  worth  the  trouble  to  organize  them. 
The  immigrant,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  not  apt  to  be  the  skilled 
laborer  from  the  foreign  city;  the  purveyors  of  hands  for  American 
industry  have  generally  been  careful  to  make  sure  that  he  is  the  simple 


Infidels  and  Heretics  203 

peasant.  And  workers  tinged  with  revolutionary  ideas  are  not  apt  to 
emigrate;  they  are  too  much  interested  in  effecting  social  change  in 
their  own  land.  Yet  by  the  same  token  when  the  unskilled  workers 
are  approached  by  a  radical  leader  they  willingly  respond;  they  are  in 
no  wise  attached  to  the  principles  of  the  constitution  or  to  any  other 
foundation  of  the  modern  society. 

For  all  these  reasons  alien  philosophies,  and  in  particular  the  class 
conscious  theories  of  Marx,  appeal  mainly  to  those  already  class  con- 
scious, and  gain  a  foothold  in  the  fairly  homogeneous  immigrant  centers 
rather  than  in  localities  where  native  American  stock  is  predominant; 
though,  it  must  be  confessed,  certain  revolutionary  philosophies  are  a 
marked  exception.  But  these  are  quite  different  from  orthodox  Marxi- 
anism,  and  represent  an  indigenous  growth.  The  history  of  Marxian 
socialism  in  the  United  States  is  the  history  of  the  attempted  "  Ameri- 
canization" of  a  philosophy  that  from  the  start  was  recognized  as 
something  alien  to  the  tradition  of  the  great  body  of  American  workers. 
"In  Europe,"  says  one  of  the  foremost  of  its  leaders,  "  the  socialist  move- 
ment sprang  up  in  the  midst  of  the  native  population  and  adjusted  itself 
to  the  economic  and  political  conditions  of  each  country  quite  mechan- 
ically and  without  effort.  But  in  the  United  States  the  situation  was 
altogether  different.  It  is  estimated  that  no  more  than  ten  per  cent 
of  the  members  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  during  the  period  described 
(1877-1900)  were  native  Americans.  All  the  rest,  including  the  most 
active  and  influential  leaders,  were  men  of  foreign  birth,  insufficiently 
acquainted  with  the  institutions,  customs,  and  habits  of  the  country 
of  their  adoption,  and  frequently  ignorant  of  its  very  language. 

"In  these  circumstances  the  pioneers  of  the  movement  soon  realized 
the  hopelessness  of  their  task  to  effect  radical  social  and  economic 
changes  in  this  country  by  their  own  efforts,  and  henceforward  they 
considered  it  their  special  mission  to  acclimatize  the  movement, and  to 
leave  its  further  development  to  the  American  working  men.  The  en- 
deavor to  'Americanize'  the  socialist  movement  is  the  main  key-note 
of  the  activity  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  throughout  its  entire  career."  1 

In  fact,  socialism  appeared  in  the  United  States  as  a  German  product, 
and  found  by  far  its  largest  support  here  among  the  German  element. 
Of  late  years  the  Jews,  for  whose  welfare  and  aid  the  Socialists  alone 
seemed  to  have  any  genuine  care,  have  likewise  become  its  enthusiastic 
followers.  And,  although  its  members  are  eager  to  deny  it,  and  point 
to  the  fact  that  at  the  first  convention  of  the  present  Socialist  Party 
1  Hillquit,  History  of  Socialism  in  the  United  States,  5th  ed.,  193. 


204  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

in  1901  only  25  out  of  124  delegates  were  foreign  born,  and  that  the 
average  of  enrolled  membership  is  71%  native,1  it  is  impossible  not  to 
admit  that  socialism,  or  at  any  rate  the  Socialist  party,  has  hitherto 
had  no  special  appeal  for  the  worker  of  American  stock.  The  very  fact 
that  its  strongholds  are  in  New  York  and  in  Milwaukee,  and  in  mining 
and  mill  communities  of  the  East,  all  places  where  the  foreign-born  are 
very  strong,  emphasizes  the  distinction  between  Marxianism  and  the 
American  democratic  tradition.  But  the  Socialists  are  also  quite  right 
in  insisting  upon  the  "American"  nature  of  their  theories  and  their 
following;  for  if  to  be  "American"  means  to  have  the  support  of  a  great 
body  of  American  workmen  today,  then  Socialism  assuredly  can  make 
good  its  claim.  It  is  American  industry  itself  that  has  become  foreign- 
born,  until  there  has  almost  developed  a  servile  race  in  the  country. 

Of  course,  the  leaders  of  Socialism  are  by  no  means  in  the  same  sit- 
uation as  their  followers.  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  intellectuals 
inspired  with  a  passion  for  social  justice,  and  they  naturally  comprise 
some  of  those  whose  ancestors  were  suckled  on  the  pure  milk  of  Ameri- 
canism; they  regard  Socialism,  with  perhaps  certain  modifications,  as 
the  consummation  of  American  democracy.  They  are  sincere  converts 
of  whom  Socialism  is  very  proud,  and  they  have  been  of  inestimable 
service  to  her.  Moreover,  perhaps  the  majority  of  the  million  voters 
whom  the  Socialists  have  been  able  to  attract  vote  as  they  do,  not  from 
a  conviction  of  the  inherent  truth  of  the  Socialist  dogmas,  but  largely 
as  a  matter  of  protest  and  resentment  against  the  other  large  parties. 
The  same  could  probably  be  said,  with  less  assurance,  of  large  sections 
of  the  trade  unionists.  Socialism  during  the  last  twenty  years  has  been 
the  one  possible  alternative  to  the  continuance  of  things  as  they  are 
upon  which  any  large  number  of  men  have  agreed.  The  convinced 
Socialist,  who  worships  his  Marxian  Bible,  is  even  today  largely  confined 
to  the  worker  out  of  touch  with  the  main  body  of  the  American  Labor 
movement.  Nothing  can  make  this  more  plain  than  the  respective 
attitudes  which  the  A.  F.  L.  and  the  Socialist  Party  adopted  towards 
American  participation  in  the  war. 

The  socialist  movement  in  the  United  States  falls  naturally  into  three 
periods,  before  1877,  the  period  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  1877-1901, 
and  that  of  the  present  Socialist  Party.  The  first  two  periods  represent 
almost  entirely  agitation  among  the  German-speaking  workers.  Before 
the  Civil  War,  Weitling,  a  refugee  of  1848  and  a  combination  of  Marxian 
and  Utopian,  carried  on  a  paper  and  spread  certain  Marxian  ideas; 
^illquit,  History  of  Socialism  in  the  United  States,  5th  ed.,  309,  357. 


Infidels  and  Heretics  205 

and  in  1857  a  Communistic  Club  was  formed  in  New  York.  With  the 
International  Working-Men's  Association,  founded  in  1864  by  British 
unionists  to  regulate  the  international  labor  supply,  and  the  scene  of 
much  of  Marx's  work,  the  National  Labor  Union,  under  the  influence 
of  Sylvis  and  with  the  motion  of  restricting  the  evils  of  free  immigration, 
expressed  its  sympathy,  and  even  elected  Sylvis  as  a  delegate;  but  he 
could  not  go  without  funds,  and  his  death  in  1869  stopped  all  further 
interchange  between  American  and  European  labor.  In  1868  the 
German  workers  in  New  York  formed  a  General  German  Workers' 
Union,  which  first  joined  the  National  Labor  Union,  but  in  the  next 
year  joined  the  International  as  Section  i  of  New  York,  and  adopted 
Marxian  principles.  Soon  there  were  sections  in  Chicago  and  San 
Francisco,  of  various  foreign  nationalities;  in  1870  there  were  over  30 
sections  and  some  5000  enrolled  members,  which,  to  gain  the  attention 
of  the  American  movement,  supported  a  number  of  strikes  then  in 
progress.  In  1872  the  North  American  Federation  of  the  International 
was  formed,  and  the  next  year  the  General  Council  was  transferred  to 
New  York.  The  last  conference  of  the  great  International  at  Philadel- 
phia in  1876  was  a  perfect  failure.  The  truth  is  that  the  Germans  were 
quarreling  among  themselves,  while  alarm  at  the  Commune  of  1871 
and  the  amusing  antics  of  Section  12  under  two  feminist  agitators, 
Victoria  Woodhull  and  Tennessee  Claflin,  had  either  scared  or  laughed 
away  the  American  support  that  at  one  time  seemed  about  to  attach 
itself  to  the  Socialists. 

Nevertheless,  in  1874  A.  Strasser,  the  cigar-maker  who  was  later  to 
figure  as  a  pioneer  of  pure  and  simple  business  unionism,  formed  the 
Social  Democratic  Working-Men's  Party  out  of  several  of  the  old  sec- 
tions of  the  International;  this  organization  participated  in  and  cap- 
tured the  Industrial  Congress  of  1876,  and  in  the  same  year  formed  a 
national  party  which  in  the  next  took  the  name  of  the  Socialist  Labor 
Party,  with  doctrines  of  strictest  Marxianism.  In  1879  this  party  had 
almost  10,000  members,  which,  however,  had  shrunk  four  years  later 
to  a  bare  isoo.1  The  anarchist  movement  of  the  eighties  drew  from 
their  ranks,  and  had  almost  annihilated  them  at  its  collapse  in  1886, 
The  Socialists,  too,  looking  with  envious  eyes  on  the  success  of  the  Knights 
of  Labor  and  the  American  Federation,  sought  both  to  get  their  aid  in 
political  action  and  to  gain  control  of  them;  but,  for  all  their  dallying 
with  the  Socialists  in  tunes  of  depression,  such  as  the  1886  Henry  George 
campaign  in  New  York,  the  unionists,  so  soon  as  business  picked  up, 

1  Hillquit,  op.  cit.,  207. 


206  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

turned  a  deaf  ear  to  them.  By  1896,  however,  the  Socialists  had  200 
sections,  and  had  managed  to  secure  control  of  several  city  federations, 
notably  the  Central  Labor  Union  of  New  York,  the  United  German 
Trades,  and  the  United  Hebrew  Trades.  These  latter  had  been  or- 
ganized through  the  efforts  of  the  Socialists  in  the  spontaneous  revolt 
of  the  Jewish  garment  workers  in  New  York  against  sweatshop  condi- 
tions; in  gratitude  they  have  remained  largely  socialist  ever  since.  In 
1893  the  Socialists  captured  District  Assembly  49,  the  New  York  branch 
of  the  Knights,  and  helped  defeat  Powderly;  but  a  quarrel  soon  broke 
out  between  the  essentially  rural  Knights  and  the  Socialists. 

In  the  Federation  socialism  was  represented  by  a  respectable  mi- 
nority. In  1 88 1  six  out  of  the  hundred  and  seven  delegates  had  been 
declared  socialists;  but  the  great  struggle  did  not  come  till  1893,  when 
Gompers  was  defeated  for  reelection  and  a  plank  calling  for  "  the  col- 
lective ownership  by  the  people  of  all  means  of  production  and  distri- 
bution" was  referred  to  the  constituent  unions.  Next  year  it  was 
quietly  dropped  in  the  midst  of  heated  discussion  over  Socialism,  and 
thereafter  the  Socialists  averaged  about  one  quarter  of  the  member- 
ship of  the  conventions.  By  1895  the  Socialists,  having  antagonized 
both  Knights  and  Federation,  sought  to  form  a  trade  union  of  their 
own,  and  set  up  the  Socialist  Trade  and  Labor  Alliance,  modeled  ex- 
actly on  the  type  of  the  Knights.  While  they  were  able  to  gain  at  the 
outset  the  Central  Labor  Federation  of  New  York,  and  the  United  He- 
brew Trades,  the  Alliance,  as  an  attempt  to  utilize  the  trade  union 
movement  for  political  purposes,  was  an  utter  fizzle.  The  total  vote 
in  1898  was  82,204;  the  movement  had  no  influence  on  the  American 
workers. 

In  1899  a  split  occurred  in  the  Socialist  Labor  Party;  the  seceding 
majority  joined  several  other  groups  under  Eugene  V.  Debs,  and  after 
a  little  difficulty  with  Utopian  colonizers  formed  in  1901  the  Socialist 
Party.  By  abandoning  the  strict  impossibilism  of  the  older  organiza- 
tion and  adopting  more  opportunistic  and  reformist  tactics,  the  social- 
ists have  been  able  to  secure  as  many  as  a  million  votes. 

Why  has  the  socialist  movement  in  the  United  States  remained  a 
thing  apart  from  the  general  movement,  having,  indeed,  many  adher- 
ents even  within  the  business  unions,  but  depending  mainly  upon  the 
immigrant  populations  of  our  great  cities?  Why  has  it  remained  more 
doctrinaire  and  orthodox  than  almost  any  other  socialist  party,  so  much 
so  that  during  the  war  it  was  left  almost  alone  to  adhere  to  the  anti- 
militaristic principles  of  the  International?  It  has  the  proud  distinc- 


Infidels  and  Heretics  207 

tion  of  remaining  faithful  to  its  principles  in  time  of  peril,  but  that  very 
loyalty  meant  that  it  was  out  of  touch  with  the  main  body  of  Amer- 
ican labor.  Why  has  not  socialism  taken  on  American  form  and  fea- 
ture, as  it  has  been  acclimated  in  England?  Why,  since  America  is  the 
land  where  capitalism  has  traveled  further  on  its  Marxian  path  than 
in  any  other,  has  socialism  so  failed  here? 

Fundamentally,  it  is  because  its  ideology  and  its  aims  are  quite  for- 
eign to  the  American  spirit  and  tradition  of  a  democracy  of  equality. 
To  accept  Marxianism,  it  must  be  swallowed  whole ;  and  though  Amer- 
ican labor  readily  accepts  the  class  struggle,  it  is  quite  unable  to  con- 
template the  utopia  of  the  orthodox  socialist.  The  American  distrusts 
the  state  and  all  its  ways  with  the  bitterness  of  a  century  and  a  half's 
rule  by  politicians;  the  efficient  German  bureaucracy,  with  its  nicely 
graded  and  adjusted  scales  of  ability,  is  to  him  incomprehensible.  He 
is  not  at  all  averse  to  a  collectivism;  group  enterprise,  from  the  days 
of  de  Tocqueville,  has  been  a  characteristic  of  America.  But  that  the 
group  to  take  over  the  means  of  production  should  be  the  government 
— for  he  recognizes  no  such  entity  as  the  "State" — those  cheap  poli- 
ticians, those  unsuccessful  lawyers — well,  a  Shonts  may  be  bad  enough, 
but  he  is  not  going  to  take  his  chances  with  a  Tammany  Mayor.  So- 
cialism, as  government  operation,  leaves  him  utterly  cold  because  he 
has  never  in  his  experience  met  with  such  a  thing  as  the  German  bu- 
reaucracy or  the  British  Civil  service,  and  if  he  had  he  would  reject  a 
system  that  merely  substituted  an  aristocracy  of  ability  for  an  aristoc- 
racy of  wealth  or  birth.  He  wants  no  aristocracy  whatsoever.  Hence 
it  is  that,  while  he  may  advocate  collective  ownership  and  operation, 
he  is  indifferent  to  any  proposal  to  make  the  group  the  government. 
In  this  the  American  worker  is  at  bottom  syndicalistic,  as  the  A.  F.  L. 
conventions  have  repeatedly  revealed;  and  syndicalism,  we  may  re- 
member, originated  in  a  country  which  has  enjoyed  some  fifty  years 
of  rule  by  politicians.  Socialism  will  never  be  able  to  conquer  the 
American  tradition  unless  it  abandons  or  greatly  weakens  its  emphasis 
on  the  "State." 

But  if  the  American  is  not  a  national  socialist,  neither  is  he  an  an- 
archist in  the  sense  in  which  the  Latins  of  Europe  may  become.  Not 
that  he  is  particularly  averse  to  the  use  of  force  (to  which,  strange 
irony,  are  committed  those  who  are  revolting  against  the  employment 
of  all  force!)  but  he  has  no  stomach  for  that  particular  variety  which 
comprises  stealth  and  conspiracy  and  dynamite.  He  prefers  force  open 
and  above-board,  a  few  broken  heads,  perhaps,  but  essentially  the  ec- 


208  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

onomic  force  of  the  strike.  Occasionally  workers  will  suffer  from  the 
delusion  that  the  bomb  is  their  only  recourse,  as  happened  a  few  years 
ago  with  the  bridge  workers;  but  that  is  the  exception  that  proves  the 
rule,  and  is  invariably  the  result  of  the  influence  of  a  particular  leader. 

In  the  eighties,  indeed,  there  arose  a  real  anarchist  movement;  but 
it  comprised  only  those  elements  which  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  then 
drew  from,  together  with  a  few  intellectuals.  In  1881  there  was  formed 
in  Chicago  a  branch  of  the  International  Working  People's  Associa- 
tion, the  so-called  "black  international,"  composed  of  seceding  sec- 
tions of  the  S.  L.  P.,  under  the  leadership  of  Johann  Most.  It  held  a 
convention  in  Pittsburgh  in  1883  which  issued  a  most  inflammatory 
proclamation  calling  on  workers  to  employ  all  means,  especially  force. 
It  achieved  national  importance  as  a  result  of  the  Haymarket  bomb  of 
1886,  which,  though  almost  certainly  exploded  without  the  knowledge 
or  the  consent  of  the  I.  W.  P.  A.  officers,  was  certainly  the  logical  de- 
duction from  their  proclamations.  The  Black  International,  and  with 
it  anarchism,  disappeared  utterly  from  American  labor;  and  the  net 
result  was  to  turn  the  conservative  business  unions,  whose  eight-hour 
strike  was  directly  ruined  by  it,  as  far  as  possible  from  revolutionary 
sentiments. 

At  this  point  it  might  be  well  to  mention  the  most  recent  of  the  al- 
ien philosophies,  the  Communist  and  the  Communist  Labor  Parties, 
splits  from  the  emergency  convention  of  the  Socialist  Party  at  Chicago 
in  August,  1919.  They  are  slight  organizations  produced  by  the  reac- 
tion of  Russian  events  on  souls  too  impatient  with  the  conservativeness 
and  opportunism  of  the  orthodox  Socialist  Party;  the  latter  is  merely  an 
organization  of  discontented  "left-wingers"  who  want  more  action 
and  excitement,  mainly  from  the  northwest,  (Minnesota,  Oregon,  Cali- 
fornia, and  Ohio)  but  whose  principles  differ  very  little  from  orthodox 
Maraanism — they  are  merely  reformers  seeking  the  pure  gospel.  The 
former  is  or  was  composed  of  about  30,000  members  of  the  seven  Slavic 
federations  of  the  Socialist  Party,  Russians  whose  leaders  desired  to 
emulate  their  countrymen,  and  the  Michigan  delegation  which,  after 
calling  the  new  party,  found  itself  hopelessly  overruled.  These  leaders 
who  did  not  bother  to  consult  their  "followers,"  drew  up  a  platform 
calling,  in  a  little  stronger  language  than  usual,  for  the  socialist  aims, 
and  preferred  the  "mass  strike"  to  political  campaigning.  Obviously, 
neither  group  is  worthy  of  serious  thought  as  part  of  the  labor  movement. 

What,  then,  has  been  the  net  result  upon  the  American  labor  move- 
ment of  these  various  foreign  philosophies?  Undoubtedly  the  greatest 


Infidels  and  Heretics  209 

effect  has  been  to  increase  class  consciousness  and  class  solidarity. 
The  theory  of  the  class  struggle  has  been  that  part  of  Marxianism  that 
has  made  the  strongest  appeal  to  the  American  worker;  and  the  feeling 
of  class  consciousness  marks  nearly  all  the  newer  unions  today.  So- 
cialism, besides,  has  probably  done  much,  in  the  hold  it  has  been  able 
to  get  in  the  A.  F.  L.,  to  aid  in  the  tendency  toward  the  breaking  down 
of  craft  lines. 

Moreover,  socialism  and  collectivism  have  made  it  easy  for  the  worker 
to  favor  the  application  of  a  certain  amount  of  state  socialism — mini- 
mum wages,  health  insurance,  pensions,  and  the  like — which  without 
its  influence  would  probably  still  be  regarded  by  the  workers  with  the 
same  suspicious  eye  the  employer  preserves  for  it.  From  legislation 
freeing  labor  from  special  disabilities  the  A.  F.  L.  lobby  has  thus  been 
easily  led  to  legislation  directly  in  its  favor. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  these  foreign  radicalisms  have  undoubtedly 
increased  the  general  conservatism  of  the  American  labor  movement. 
It  has  often  been  afraid  to  adopt  and  propose  policies  that  it  otherwise 
would  have  enthusiastically  endorsed  for  fear  of  being  branded  with 
the  stigma  of  "socialistic."  This  fear  of  "socialistic  tendencies"  has 
been  all  the  more  potent  in  that  they  are  generally  identified  with  the 
clearly  alien  element  of  the  community  who  seem  not  yet  thoroughly 
"Americanized."  For  the  native  worker  of  older  stock,  socialism  or 
radicalism  of  any  sort  has  come  to  be  identified  with  the  squalid  slum 
and  the  unskilled  labor  which  in  his  pride  he  is  apt  to  despise.  As  dis- 
tinct from  these  "ignorant  foreigners"  he  is  a  business  man,  and  he 
prides  himself  on  his  ability  to  vote  the  Republican  ticket  with  the  most 
successful  business  man  in  the  land.  And,  it  must  be  confessed,  a  good 
deal  of  this  attitude  has  crept  into  the  immigrants  themselves.  They 
have  everywhere  been  taught,  and  in  many  cases  they  have  finally  come 
to  believe,  that  socialism  is  one  of  the  things  that  along  with  the  full 
beard  and  the  peasant  shawl  must  be  discarded  in  the  process  of  Ameri- 
canization: to  become  a  conservative  business  man  is  somehow  much 
more  "  American  "  than  to  remain  a  radical. 

If  the  history  of  American  labor  has  revealed  any  lesson,  it  is  that 
the  American,  while  quite  willing  to  embark  upon  political  action  to 
secure  the  aims  and  needs  of  his  trade  union,  is  utterly  opposed  to  any 
political  action  seeking  to  accomplish  primarily  political  control  of 
economic  conditions  and  disregarding  those  unions.  Any  political 
party  that  he  will  whole-heartedly  support  must  be  the  servant  of  the 
union  movement,  must  supplement  it,  not  take  its  place.  The  efforts 


210  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

of  the  Socialists  in  their  Socialist  Trade  and  Labor  Alliance  to  imital 
Germany  in  making  of  the  unions  an  instrument  for  the  furtherii 
of  party  aims  came  to  a  sudden  and  complete  collapse.  If  American 
workers  are  to  remain  what  they  have  been  in  the  past,  any  labor  party 
they  form  must  be  firmly  based  upon  and  completely  controlled  by  the 
strong  unions,  and  its  program  must  emphasize  primarily  trade  union 
control  and  organization. 

Hence  the  radical  philosophies  based  on  Marx  have  almost  entirely 
remained  in  the  hands  of  foreigners  who,  however  they  may  have  be- 
come a  very  large  factor  in  American  industry,  have  remained  as  yet 
outside  the  traditions  of  the  American  labor  movement.  They  have 
remained  essentially  a  philosophy  of  protest  and  revolt,  and  it  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  as  yet  they  have  presented  no  program,  political 
or  industrial,  at  all  practicable  in  the  face  of  American  conditions  and 
the  psychology  of  the  American  worker. 


But  while  orthodox  Marxianism  has  never  gained  a  real  hold  on  the 
American  labor  movement,  there  has  been  a  spirited  native  revolt 
against  the  business  union — a  revolt  taking  its  beginnings  in  the  West- 
ern Federation  of  Miners,  and  developing  into  the  I.  W.  W.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  I.  W.  W.  and  its  failure  to  transform  the  American  labor 
movement  directly  are  alike  significant.  So  intriguing  in  theory  with 
its  doctrines  of  the  industrial  state  and  its  generous  social  unionism,  so 
revolting  in  practice  to  minds  brought  up  in  traditional  ways  of  think- 
ing, by  reason  of  its  extreme  predatory  character,  it  has  nevertheless 
exerted,  and  probably  will  continue  to  exert,  an  important  if  indirect 
influence  on  the  older  business  unionism. 

The  Western  Federation  of  Miners  was  organized  in  1893  as  a  result 
of  the  Coeur  d'Alene  outbreak  among  the  metal  miners  of  the  west. 
These  sturdy  pioneers  were  for  the  most  part  Americans  of  the  old 
stock,  bred  in  the  old  frontier  tradition  and  impatient  of  the  restraints 
of  Eastern  industrialism.  They  had  been  engaged  in  independent  gold 
and  lead  mining,  and  when  the  advent  of  capitalism  created  large  com- 
panies and  reduced  them'  to  wageworkers,  they  banded  together,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Vigilance  Committees,  to  protect  their  rights  from  aggres- 
sion. On  their  side  were  all  the  traditions  of  the  wild  and  woolly  west; 
on  the  other,  all  the  strength  that  capitalism  can  gain  in  newly  devel- 
oped lands,  like  South  Africa.  Strikes  of  extreme  bitterness  and  deadli- 
ness  followed  swift  upon  each  other:  Coeur  d'Alene  in  1893,  Cripple 


Infidels  and  Heretics  211 

Creek  in  1894,  Leadville  in  1896-97,  Salt  Lake  and  Coeur  d'  Alene  again 
in  1899,  Telluride  in  1901,  Idaho  Springs  in  1903,  and  Cripple  Creek 
again  in  1903-04.  The  state  governments  were  wholly  in  the  hands  of 
the  mine-owners,  and  this  heightened  in  the  miners  the  profound  dis- 
gust with  political  government  that  pioneering  conditions  had  fostered. 
They  thought  at  first  of  capturing  the  state  legislatures,  and  used  much 
of  the  ideology  of  socialism;  but  they  put  more  trust  in  economic  action, 
and  seriously  discussed  the  purchase  and  operation  of  mines.  They 
had  done  well  enough  before  the  advent  of  the  capitalist,  and  they  would 
do  well  enough  without  him  again.1  Their  union,  which  took  in  all 
workers,  waiters,  lumbermen,  and  the  rest,  in  some  respects  recalls  a 
union  of  ''all  good  citizens"  to  clean  up  the  disreputable  elements;  for 
the  Western  Federation  organized  a  Western  Labor  Union  of  which  it 
was  by  far  the  largest  member.  Their  methods  were  rough  and  ready, 
and  involved  none  of  the  business  tactics  of  the  older  unions;  William 
D.  Haywood  boasted  in  the  first  I.  W.  W.  convention:  "We  have  not 
got  an  agreement  existing  with  any  mine  manager,  superintendent,  or 
operator  at  the  present  time.  We  have  got  a  minimum  scale  of  wages 
and  the  eight-hour  day,  and  we  did  not  have  a  legislative  lobby  to  ac- 
complish it. "  2  They  were  out  to  fight  and  get  what  they  could. 

In  1905  this  group  of  western  miners,  with  their  new  American  Labor 
Union,  joined  with  Daniel  De  Leon  and  the  remnants  of  the  old  Social- 
ist Labor  Party,  together  with  several  other  leaders  and  minor  unions, 
in  a  convention  at  Chicago  that  called  itself  the  Industrial  Workers  of 
the  World  and  was  bound  together  by  the  common  hatred  of  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  and  "pure  and  simple  trade  unionism."  The  group 
consisted  mainly  of  socialists  from  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners, 
under  Sherman,  who  was  elected  president;  Socialist  laborites,  the  so- 
called  "impossiblists"  or  "fanatic  Jesuits"  of  the  socialist  tradition;  a 
small  handful  under  De  Leon;  and  revolutionary  unionists  under  Hay- 
wood  and  Vincent  St.  John  of  the  Western  Federation.  Personal  squab- 
bles split  off  Sherman  and  the  Miners  in  1906;  and  in  1908  De  Leon 
and  the  advocates  of  political  as  well  as  revolutionary  economic  action 
were  excluded  by  the  so-called  "bummery  crowd,"  which  left  the  I.  W. 
W.  in  the  hands  of  Haywood,  St.  John,  and  the  revolutionary  direct 
actionists. 

The  successive  quarrels  and  splits  that  mark  the  history  of  the  organ- 
ization are  unimportant;  they  merely  signify  the  disgust  with  which 

1  Brissenden,  The  I.  W.  W.,  42. 

2  Proceedings,  ist  I.  W.  W.  Convention,  154. 


212  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  strong  central  leadership  of  the  business  unions  was  regarded  by 
these  rebels.  The  subsequent  history  of  the  I.  W.  W.  is  well-known: 
how  they  organized  that  class  of  homeless  and  womanless  migratory 
workers  which  the  capitalists'  need  for  "  a  good  labor  market"  has  called 
into  being  in  the  Northwest,  and  found  among  the  wandering  agricul- 
tural laborers,  the  miners,  and  above  all  the  lumbermen,  staunch  sup- 
porters in  their  campaign  for  livable  conditions.  They  have  even  in- 
vaded the  East,  coming  into  Lawrence  in  1912  and  other  textile  centers 
after  the  unorganized  unskilled  have  been  driven  to  revolt.  The  men  they 
have  appealed  to  have  been  the  men  no  other  labor  organization  con- 
sidered worth  while — the  very  lowest  of  the  low.  But  their  principles 
forbade  any  efficient  organization;  their  fields  do  not  stay  organized, 
and  although  aided  by  persecution  they  have  not  gained  nor  are  they 
likely  to  gain  any  considerable  membership.  They  claim  at  the  present 
time  only  70,000  members,  nearly  all  in  the  Northwest,  and  this  num- 
ber is  far  in  excess  of  their  real  strength.  Brissenden  estimates  that  the 
government  figure  of  200,000  probably  represents  the  number  of  those 
who  at  one  time  or  'another  have  carried  I.  W.  W.  cards.  But  it  is  not 
upon  their  membership,  but  upon  discontented  and  desperate  workers 
driven  to  sudden  revolt,  that  the  I.  W.  W.  depends  for  its  fighting 
strength. 

Despite  its  analogies  to  French  syndicalism,  despite  the  international 
relations  upon  which  they  have  in  the  last  decade  prided  themselves,  the 
I.  W.  W.  was  a  purely  indigenous  organization,  born  of  the  union  of  the 
Western  pioneering  atmosphere  and  a  fully  developed  capitalism.  And 
despite  its  elaborate  and  detailed  social  theory,  which  it  has  of  late  years 
worked  out  on  foreign  models,  the  I.  W.  W.  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  a 
philosophy  or  even  to  be  descended  from  Marxian  forbears.  Its  leaders 
indeed  started  with  a  smattering  of  the  great  socialist,  and  have  latterly 
developed  their  genealogy;  but  they  stopped  with  the  class  struggle.  Of 
economic  determinism,  of  collective  state  ownership,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
intricacies  of  surplus  value  and  the  other  dogmas  of  the  Master,  in  which 
every  true  socialist  is  at  home,  the  average  Wobbly  lumberjack  knows 
nothing  and  cares  less;  but  that  there  is  a  big  fight  going  on  and  that  he 
must  see  that  his  side  wins,  that  is  perfectly  obvious.  And  the  typical 
Wobbly,  when  he  says  "class  struggle"  and  the  "overthrow  of  the 
capitalist,"  means  it  in  a  sense  in  which  few  revolutionaries  have  ever 
meant  their  stereotyped  phrases.  A  struggle  is  an  active  physical  com- 
bat, an  overthrow  is  a  real  crash;  it  is  not  merely  a  persuasive  labor 
lieutenant  to  the  captain  of  industry,  with  his  "You've  got  my  sym- 


Infidels  and  Heretics  213 

pa  thy,"  or  a  tiresome  political  campaign  with  an  efficient  bureaucracy. 
As  Carleton  Parker  so  well  explained,  the  I.  W.  W.  movement  in  the  rank 
and  file  owed  its  popularity  to  deep-seated  and  instinctive  needs  of  the 
migratory  worker,  and  not  at  all  to  the  carefully  developed  industrial 
departments  and  technique  of  future  production  which  the  leaders 
developed. 

The  only  immediate  result  on  the  Federation  was  the  half-hearted 
attempt,  since  abandoned,  to  organize  the  unskilled  among  whom  the 
I.  W.  W.  worked  into  local  or  "federal"  labor  unions.  But  the  indirect 
influence  has^come  through  other  channels.  Besides  their  tactics  of  the 
general  strike  and  sabotage  the  I.  W.  W.  gradually  developed  an  interest- 
ing  syndicalistic  social  "theory,  in  which  the  political  state  was  to  be 
abolished  and  industrial  unions  were  to  take  over  all  the  functions  of 
production  and  government — the  typical  syndicalistic  economic  federal- 
ism. Many  of  the  younger  and  more  intellectual  leaders  have  also 
occupied  their  time  with  elaborating  the  plans  for  such  direct  control  of 
production  by  the  workers,  and  the  I.  W.  W.  has  been  a  pioneer  in  em- 
phasizing industrial  education  and  training  with  a  view  to  eventually 
" capturing"  and  administering  the  means  of  production.  These  leaders 
have  come  to  feel  that  their  aim  can  best  be  achieved,  not  in  a  miscellane- 
ous rabble  such  as  constitutes  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Wobblies,  but 
through  the  older  business  unions  and  the  orthodox  labor  movement, 
which  has  recently  been  exhibiting  remarkable  signs  of  transformation. 
Hence  many  of  them  have  come  to  favor  an  educational  propaganda 
through  the  " coffin  societies"  themselves,  and  the  now  celebrated  policy 
of  "boring  from  within";  and  in  the  process  their  earlier  views  are 
of  necessity  being  modified.  They  believe  that  a  steady  and  prolonged 
training  and  education  in  responsibility  is  required  before  the  workers  can 
ever  hope  to  capture  industry,  and  that  training  they  see  possible  only  in 
the  unions  of  the  A.  F.  L.  They  also  do  not  utterly  give  up  the  ballot  as 
an  instrument  of  transformation.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  De  Leon 
left  the  I.  W.  W.  and  set  up  a  rival  I.  W.  W.  in  Detroit,  since  renamed,  the 
Worker's  International  Industrial  Union;  he  had  come  to  desire  above  all 
the  discarding  of  political  representation  and  the  organization  of  workers 
along  industrial  lines,  and  he  could  not  but  feel  that  sabotage  and  destruc- 
tive methods  were  the  worst  possible  kind  of  training  for  the  eventual 
management  of  industry. 

These  influences,  which  may  foretell  a  turning  of  the  extreme  radicals 
back  into  the  regular  labor  movement  and  towards  the  building  up  of  a 
trade  unionism  which  shall  be  far  more  than  business  unionism  has 


214  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

hitherto  been,  readily  join  forces  with  the  tendencies  we  have  already 
observed  within  the  heart  of  business  unionism  itself,  and  serve  but  to 
hasten  its  change.  It  is  to  the  outcome — to  the  New  Unionism,  as  it 
already  is  and  as  it  appears  likely  to  become  in  the  near  future,  that  we 
must  now  turn  our  attention. 


12.  THE  GROWTH  OF  CLASS  SOLIDARITY  AND  THE  NEW 

UNIONISM 

THE  progress  of  the  industrial  revolution  has  at  length  reached  the 
point  where  common  class  interests  are  tending  to  break  down  particular 
group  interests,  and  weld  the  labor  movement  into  one  great  whole;  or,  to 
be  more  correct,  where  particular  group  interests  can  no  longer  reach  their 
realization  without  combining  into  larger  and  mutually  interdependent 
groups.  This,  of  course,  is  a  generalization,  and  like  all  generalizations 
it  has  many  exceptions:  there  still  are  and  probably  for  some  time  will 
remain  a  certain  number  of  groups  which,  either  by  reason  of  the  purely 
technical  persistence  of  a  considerable  degree  of  skilled  craftsmanship, 
or  for  some  other  special  reason  not  germane  to  the  labor  movement  as  a 
whole,  preserve  the  skilled  craftsman's  aristocratic  sense  of  elevation 
above  the  general  struggles  of  the  mass  of  the  laboring  classes.  But  all 
indications  point  toward  a  marked  tendency  in  the  labor  movement, 
taken  by  and  large,  toward  the  replacement  of  wage-consciousness  by 
class-consciousness. 

The  primary  cause,  of  course,  is  the  technological  one  of  the  progress 
of  invention;  trie  introduction  of  machines  everywhere  to  replace  the 
simple  tool  of  the  manual  laborer.  With  the  increasing  strength  of  the 
business  union  and  its  consequent  greater  demand  for  wages,  the  em- 
ployer will  be  more  and  more  driven  to  supplant  processes  depending 
upon  skilled  workmen  with  elaborate  and  intricate  machines  that  work 
automatically;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  as  the  union  reaches  a 
position  where  it  will  be  able  to  regulate  the  introduction  and  assure  the 
retention,  in  some  other  capacity,  of  the  workers,  and  the  employer  seeks 
gain  in  increased  production  rather  than  in  discarding  workers,  the 
unions  will  not  only  permit  but  welcome  new  labor-saving  devices.  For 
it  is,  of  course,  not  the  new  machine  itself,  but  only  the  fact  that  its 
introduction  in  the  past  has  so  often  led  to  a  dismissal  of  most  of  the 
workmen,  that  has  led  to  the  hostility  of  the  worker.  This  advance  in 
technique  will,  on  the  whole,  slightly  raise  the  skill  required  by  the  lowest 
grade  of  unskilled  labor;  machine  tending  requires  the  exercise  of  slightly 
more  intelligence  than  ditch-digging  or  wheeling  barrows.  But  on  the 
other  hand  all  the  higher  branches  of  skilled  craftmanship  will  give  way 
to  the  common  level  of  the  machine  tender;  and  though  the  minimum  be 


216  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

raised,  the  reduction  of  the  whole  body  of  workers  to  one  common  rather 
low  level  will  result.  The  knowledge  of  processes  and  of  the  designing 
and  construction  of  the  machines  will  come  more  and  more  to  be  con- 
centrated in  the  hands  of  the  highly  trained  technological  experts  form- 
ing the  major  portion  of  the  management  group.  An  example  of  the 
resulting  economic  condition  was  given  recently  in  the  trade  of  glass 
blowing,  which  had  from  its  inception  remained  in  the  hands  of  a  highly 
skilled,  highly  conservative,  and  typically  business  union  of  hand  work- 
ers. About  1906  a  machine  for  blowing  bottles  was  widely  introduced, 
completely  disrupting  the  bottle-blowers'  schedules  and  plans  and  reduc- 
ing them  at  one  stroke  to  an  only  moderately  skilled  union.  In  many 
industries  the  exigencies  of  the  war  operated  in  a  similar  way,  and  only 
the  strength  of  the  unions  and  their  ability  to  control  the  situation  was 
able  to  save  their  ruin.  But  even  where  such  unions  are  able  to  secure 
very  favorable  terms,  every  such  occurrence  brings  them  more  and  more 
immediately  into  contact  with  the  rest  of  the  labor  movement  as  it 
destroys  their  special  monopoly  of  skill.  To  put  it  concretely,  although 
the  locomotive  firemen,  to  save  themselves  the  back-breaking  labor,  are 
demanding  the  introduction  of  mechanical  stokers  on  all  the  larger 
engines,  it  is  indisputable  that  it  is  much  easier  to  secure  a  strike-breaker 
who  can  stoke  a  fire  with  such  a  device  than  one  who  knows  just  how  to 
place  a  shovel-full  of  coal  where  it  will  count  most.  And  this  sudden 
identification  of  interests  with  the  less  skilled  labor  everywhere,  even 
where  it  does  not  give  rise  to  strong  industrial  unions,  leads  inevitably  to 
cooperation  and  joint  action  with  the  unskilled. 

In  addition  to  this  purely  technological  reason  for  the  growth  of 
class  solidarity,  there  is  another  and  economic  one.  With  the  increasing 
organization  of  labor  the  employer  too  has  been  driven  to  organize;  for, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  any  general  collective  bargaining  presupposes  an 
employers'  association  with  which  to  conclude  agreements.  On  the  other 
hand  there  are  many  economic  forces  tending  toward  centralization  of 
industrial  enterprises.  In  addition  to  the  desire  to  avoid  through  price 
agreement  the  evils  of  competition,  and  of  the  natural  tendency  toward 
the  formation  of  single  great  monopolies  or  trusts  in  the  basic  industries, 
there  is  the  necessity  of  great  modern  corporations  seeking  further  credit 
and  capital  in  the  large  banking  houses,  in  Wall  Street.  Mr.  Veblen's 
keen  analysis  has  revealed  how  the  typical  figure  of  the  present  age  is  no 
longer  the  captain  of  nidus  try  who  built  up  a  great  business,  but  the 
investment  banker  who  sits  in  his  counting-house,  loans  money  to  the 
industrial  enterprise  which  he  considers  profitable,  and  is  able  through  his 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  217 

control  of  credit  to  hold  the  entire  country  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 
Even  where  there  is  no  agreement  between  competing  enterprises,  the  fact 
that  their  stock  is  pretty  much  owned  by  the  same  individuals  is  a  quite 
effective  guarantee  against  excessive  differences  of  policy  and  attitude. 
Thus,  while  the  traditional  Marxian  prediction  of  the  concentration  of  all 
wealth  into  the  hands  of  a  very  small  group  seems  as  far  from  verification 
as  ever,  if  there  has  not  actually  been  a  great  increase  in  the  number  of 
investors,  it  nevertheless  remains  true  that  the  control  of  wealth  is  daily 
passing  into  fewer  and  fewer  hands;  and  the  great  army  of  widows  and 
orphans  is  gradually  awakening  to  the  fact  that  high  finance  is  conducted 
for  the  profit  of  those  who  control,  and  not  for  that  of  the  small  investor. 

Hence  organized  labor  is  facing  a  greater  and  stronger  organization 
of  capital  which  also  is  forgetting  its  competitive  differences  in  the 
common  class-consciousness.  And  recent  events  have  revealed  how 
strong  that  class-consciousness  is  and  how  determined  a  stand  it  is  going 
to  make.  In  the  face  of  such  opposition  the  laborer  is  driven  to  forget  the 
petty  differences  that  divide  him  from  his  less  skilled  brother,  and  to  join 
hand  and  soul  with  him  in  the  great  struggle  against  the  capitalist.  When 
the  power  of  the  Steel  Trust  lifts  its  head,  and  Western  Pennsylvania 
takes  on  the  air  of  a  country  at  war,  conservative  and  radical,  skilled 
craftsman  and  common  laborer,  A.  F.  L.  executives  and  Amalgamated 
Clothing  Workers,  all  forget  their  differences  and  band  together  against 
the  common  foe.  And,  from  present  indications,  the  necessity  for  such 
concerted  action  is  going  to  become  more  and  more  frequent. 

Partly  as  a  result  of  the  above  two  tendencies,  partly,  perhaps,  as 
their  cause,  there  is  the  increasing  prevalence  amongst  the  workers  of  the 
Marxian  theory  of  the  class  struggle  and  of  the  corresponding  fact  of 
general  class-consciousness.  The  old  preambles  written  back  in  the 
eighties  and  nineties  under  the  influence  of  Stewardism  are  becoming 
meaningless  to  the  worker  brought  up  in  a  modern  environment;  he  needs 
stronger  meat  than  the  conciliatory  phrases  of  that  era.  As  a  sign  of  the 
times,  for  instance,  the  Firemen's  Brotherhood  in  1918  expunged  that 
section  of  their  preamble  that  declared  that  the  interests  of  employer  and 
employee  were  identical,  and  substituted  for  it  the  aim  to  make  them  so — 
a  pious  hope  in  place  of  a  now  obvious  misstatement.  Marxianism  as  a 
whole,  as  we  have  seen,  the  American  worker  will  not  accept;  but  the 
experience  of  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  and  the  I.  W.  W.  and  the 
great  increase  in  socialist  strength  hi  the  Federation  proves  that  he  will 
eagerly  embrace  the  theory  of  the  class  struggle  and  class  consciousness. 
He  is  especially  apt  to  do  so  if  he  finds  the  employers,  whom  in  all  his 


2i 8  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

opposition  he  has  hitherto  rather  secretly  admired  and  envied,  on  their 
side  through  concerted  action  and  political  instruments  endeavoring  to 
bring  that  class  struggle  very  close  home  to  him  in  all  its  bitter  reality. 

The  first  outcome  of  these  tendencies  has  been  the  growth  of  industrial 
unionism.  Business  unionism  depends  upon  the  development  of  bargain- 
ing power.  To  develop  this  to  keep  pace  with  the  increased  strength  of 
the  employers  and  to  get  rid  of  the  competition  of  the  unskilled  industrial- 
ization has  been  imperative.  But  industrialization,  meaning  the  forma- 
tion of  unions  embracing  the  unskilled  as  well  as  the  skilled,  the  complete 
organization  of  industry,  can  mean  very  different  things.  It  can  mean, 
as  it  means  to  some  of  the  I.  W.  W.,  one  big  union  of  all  the  workers,  in 
which  unskilled  predominate;  in  this  sense  the  Knights  of  Labor  was  an 
industrial  union.  Or  it  can  mean  the  organization  of  all  the  workers  in  a 
particular  material  such,  as  metal  or  wood,  as  it  means  to  the  German 
industrialist  and  as  is  represented  in  this  country  by  the  Metal  Trades 
Department  of  the  A.  F.  L.  Or  it  can  mean,  as  it  meant  to  De  Leon  and 
the  Socialist  Laborites,  the  organization  of  workers  according  to  the  tool 
they  use.  And  finally,  it  can  mean  the  organization  of  workers  according 
to  the  product  and  the  productive  unit  or  plant. 

It  is  indeed  a  question  just  what  constitutes  an  "industry."  Some 
industries,  like  mining,  clothing  making,  or  meat-packing,  stand  out 
clearly  and  unmistakably.  It  is  in  these  that  industrial  unionism  has 
already  proceeded  furthest.  Others,  like  the  work  of  the  machinists, 
are  very  hard  indeed  to  classify;  do  the  machinists  belong  with  the 
metal  trades  if,  say,  they  are  employed  about  mines,  and  do  the  metal 
trades,  strictly  speaking,  constitute  an  industry  at  all?  These  questions 
seem  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  an  absolutely  simple  and  clear-cut 
division  of  the  basic  industries;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  theoretically 
complete  schemes  of  the  industrial  state  do  include  either  an  extensive 
system  of  transfers  from  one  union  to  another,  or  a  subsidiary  persist- 
ence of  trade  lines  within  industrial  ones,  and  some  such  solution  would 
seem  necessary  as  industrialization  advances. 

But  the  significant  point  is  that  the  form  of  industrialism  that  the 
development  of  business  unionism  forces  is  necessarily  the  last  type 
mentioned.  Business  unions  exist  to  fight  or  bargain  with  employers; 
hence  they  are  inevitably  developing  in  conformity  with  the  employers' 
organization,  which  is  that  of  productive  units  or  plants.  From  the 
earliest  days  the  workers  have  been  led  naturally  to  parallel  the  masters, 
growing  in  scope  as  the  latter  grew;  and  hence  today  their  very  function 
excludes  the  possibility  of  their  organizing  along  the  lines  of  the  one  big 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  219 

union,  the  material,  or  the  tool.  For  the  tool  today  has  become  the 
entire  factory  in  all  its  ramifications. 

The  importance  of  the  fact  that  it  is  this  particular  type  of  indus- 
trialism and  not  one  of  the  others  that  is  developing,  is  profound.  For 
while  conceivably  one  of  the  other  forms  of  organization  might  be  suc- 
cessful as  a  labor  trust  for  the  selling  of  labor,  none  other  could  possibly 
serve  as  a  basis  for  production,  and  hence  none  other  could  possibly 
release  the  second  or  social  strain  of  labor  in  productive  and\socially 
advantageous  channels.  Only  the  union  organized  around  thie  plant 
as  the  basis  could  possibly  enter  into  and  share  or  assume  the  control  of 
industry.  \^ 

Some  writers,  notably  Selig  Perlman  in  Commons'  History  of  Lbfyour 
in  the  United  States,  have  divided  industrial  unionism  into  that  of  the 
skilled  and  that  of  the  moderately  skilled.  These  are  not  really  two 
types,  but  merely  the  result  of  the  impulse  to  industrialism  meeting 
varied  technological  situations.  The  A.  F.  L.  has  always  stood  for 
what  it  called  craft  autonomy,  and  in  1901  at  Scranton  took  a  firm 
stand  against  industrial  unionism.  But  nevertheless  it  was  forced  in 
1908  to  recognize  the  Structural  Building  Trades  Alliance,  which  had 
been  since  1897  endeavoring  to  form  a  national  organization  of  the 
highly  effective  local  Building  Trades  Councils  which  dealt  as  a  body 
with  contractors  and  builders,  and  formed  it  into  the  Building  Trades 
Department  of  the  A.  F.  L.,  followed  in  the  same  year  by  the  Railway 
Employes'  Department,  in  the  next  by  the  Metal  Trades  Department, 
and  in  1912  by  the  Mining  Department.  The  latter  is  a  true  industrial 
organization,  brought  about  by  Moyer,  president  of  the  Western  Federa- 
tion of  Miners,  which  had  joined  the  A.  F.  L.  the  preceding  year.  The 
building  trades  are  also  organized  industrially,  with  autonomy  over  the 
building  trades  sections  and  authority  to  charter  new  ones.  But  the 
railway  unions  went  furthest  when  in  1912  they  abandoned  their  original 
purely  advisory  plan  with  voluntary  membership  for  a  federation  of 
federations  with  a  convention,  salaried  officers,  and  full  authority.1 
These  ten  A.  F.  L.  railway  unions,  it  may  be  added  have  from  their 
union  acted  in  close  harmony  and  concert  with  the  four  brotherhoods, 
so  that  while  each  preserves  its  autonomy,  for  all  practical  purposes  the 
railroads  are  organized  on  an  industrial  basis  and  in  important  crises 
act  as  a  unit. 

The  principal  function  of  the  departments  so  far  has  been  to  decide 
jurisdictional  disputes,  that  bugbear  of  craft  unionism;  and  in  the  settle- 
t1  A.  F.  L.,  Encyclopedia,  431,  432. 


vi 
:   its 


220  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

ment  the  opposition  to  "dual  unions"  and  the  almost  invariable  prefer- 
ence given  to  unions  of  the  strong  "basic  trades"  in  the  industries  has 
gravely  compromised  the  official  A.  F.  L.  doctrine  of  craft  autonomy. 
Thus  the  woodworkers  were  in  1912  absorbed  by  the  strong  carpenters 
and  joiners,  and  the  steamfitters  by  the  strong  plumbers;  and  the 
A.  F.  L.  convention  practically  gave  its  official  sanction  to  the  new  in- 
dustrial principle  of  basic  trades. 

In  addition  to  these  industrial  combinations  of  the  strong  craft  unions 
the  principle  of  joint  action  and  blanket  agreement,  particularly  spon- 
sored by  the  Metal  Trades  Council,  in  which  a  number  of  craft  unions 
in  an  industry  join  in  their  demands  and  threaten  a  common  strike,  has 
received  considerable  vogue,  not  only  in  the  steel  strike,  but  also  in  the 
Northwest,  in  Portland  and  in  the  Seattle  strike  of  1919.  The  A.  F.  L., 
despite  the  fact  that  its  strongest  union,  the  miners,  has  from  its  be- 
ginning in  1890  been  completely  industrialized,  has  for  so  long  opposed 
industrialism  with  craft  unionism  that  it  is  necessarily  loath  to  change 
its  professions,  but  no  one  who  is  not  blind  can  fail  to  see  the  gains  for 
the  industrial  idea  that  are  daily  .being  made  in  the  heart  of  the  Federa- 
tion. 

All  of  these  considerations  taken  together  have  made  for  the  rise  of 
a  new  and  more  radical  form  of  union — an  industrial  union  which  has 
come  to  feel  that  the  tactics  of  the  traditional  business  union  have  se- 
cured much  for  the  worker,  and  cannot  be  dropped  or  discarded  as  the 
intransigeant  revolutionary  would  desire,  but  that  at  the  same  time 
they  are  in  themselves  by  no  means  sufficient  to  secure  for  the  worker 
that  security  from  unemployment  and  that  practical  equality  of  position 
in  society  which  has  from  the  beginning  been  his  great  aim.  This  new 
unionism  differs  from  the  revolutionary  unionism  of  the  I.  W.  W.  and 
the  radicalism  of  the  socialists  in  its  perfect  willingness,  nay,  in  its  con- 
viction, to  serve  the  workers'  ultimate  interests  through  developing  to 
its  fullest  extent  the  machinery  of  collective  agreements  with  the  em- 
ployers' associations.  But  it  also  differs  from  business  unionism  in 
working  with  a  clear  prescience  of  whither  its  business  tactics  are  taking 
it,  and  with  the  realization  that  in  the  interests  of  society  as  a  whole, 
and  of  the  workers  as  the  major  part  thereof,  the  policy  of  group  in- 
dividualism is  inadequate  and  must  be  superseded.  It  thus  admirably 
combines,  in  a  manner  as  suited  to  the  present  situation  and  state  of 
the  industrial  arts  as  was  that  of  Stewardism  in  the  seventies  and  eighties, 
the  two  strains  of  group  advantage  and  social  idealism,  making  the 
second  spring  naturally  and  continuously  out  of  the  first,  and  uniting 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  U monism  221 

in  one  policy  the  advantage  of  the  individual  group  and  that  of  society 
as  a  whole.  And,  because  this  new  unionism  seems  so  well  adapted  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  present  situation,  and  because  it  seems  a  natural 
growth  out  of  and  not  an  impatient  revolt  against  and  away  from  the 
main  body  of  the  orthodox  business  labor  movement  of  America,  and, 
finally,  because  it  seems  fully  in  accord  with  the  present  tendencies 
in  labor  in  the  other  parts  of  the  industrial  world,  it  seems  wholly  prob- 
able that,  allowance  being  made  for  different  situations  in  different 
industries,  the  new  unionism  represents  the  prevailing  tendencies  in 
American  labor  today,  and  will  in  the  future  assume  increasing  impor- 
tance. 

The  general  causes  of  the  rise  of  the  new  unionism,  the  progress  of 
the  industrial  arts  and  the  increase  in  the  strength  of  the  capitalists, 
have  been  supplemented  by  other  more  immediate  factors.  Perhaps  the 
most  striking,  in  its  way,  is  the  gradual  realization  that  the  era  of  rapidly 
rising  prices  since  1914  has  forced  upon  the  workers  that  no  matter  how 
successful  they  may  be  in  raising  wages,  when  the  entire  labor  move- 
ment has  successively  struck  and  the  capitalists  have  added  their  private 
profit,  their  real  wages  and  their  standard  of  living  have  not  materially 
altered.  Consequently  they  have  been  led  to  search  for  some  other 
alternative.  It  is,  of  course,  not  true,  as  the  press  delights  to  point  out, 
that  the  worker  gains  nothing  from  strikes  for  higher  wages;  he  does 
gain  materially  for  the  time  being,  and  that  is  all  he  has  hitherto  been 
in  a  position  to  take  into  account.  But  it  is  true  that  as  the  community 
becomes  more  and  more  completely  industrialized  the  gain  of  the  single 
group  becomes  less  and  less,  until,  theoretically,  if  all  consumers  were 
wage-earners,  the  added  cost  to  the  consumer  would  precisely  balance 
the  added  wage.  And  long  before  that  state  is  reached,  the  employer 
by  multiplying  his  increased  labor  cost  five  or  ten  fold,  (which  seems  to 
be  the  popular  figure  these  days)  can  bring  about  the  same  result,  and 
thus  hasten  the  struggle.  Thus  as  a  direct  result  of  the  war  a  large  body 
of  workers  has  become  convinced  of  the  futility  of  wage  raising  as  in- 
dustry approaches  complete  organization.  But,  unlike  the  professors 
of  economics  whose  theories  they  have  thus  finally  come  to  accept,  they 
do  not  advance  to  the  further  orthodox  inference  that  since  raising  ^^ 
wages  availeth  naught  there  is  nothing  for  the  worker  to  do  save  to  work 
harder  and  persist  in  thrift  until  he  too  can  become  a  capitalist.  They 
propose  instead  to  work  for  a  gradual  abolition  of  the  wage-system  it- 
self, with  a  view  to  eventually  controlling  the  industries.  It  is  signif- 
icant that  bodies  seemingly  as  far  apart  as  the  radical  garment  workers 


222  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

and  the  conservative  railroad  brotherhoods  have  both  come  to  the  same 
conclusion,  that  the  raising  of  wages  is  a  mere  temporary  expedient. 

Added  to  this  result  of  the  war  experience  has  been  the  disgust  that 
the  more  reflecting  workmen  have  felt  at  the  failure  of  the  present 
management  of  industry  to  meet  the  test  of  war  and  of  the  universal 
lessening  of  output  in  other  lands  and  consequent  greatly  increased 
demand  here.  The  complete  collapse  of  the  railroads  under  war  pres- 
sure, and  the  incontestable  proof  that  government  control,  whatever 
its  eventual  merits,  not  only  did  not  end  in  complete  disaster  but  was 
even  able  in  many  ways  to  improve  the  efficiency  of  the  public  service, 
coming,  as  it  did,  very  shortly  after  the  scandalous  revelations  of  the 
methods  of  high  finance  on  the  New  Haven,  the  Rock  Island,  and  many 
other  systems — revelations  which  "the  public"  is  prone  to  forget  but 
which  the  workers  remember — this  situation  produced  in  the  railway 
workers,  whose  pride  in  their  work  and  whose  craftsman-like  habits  are 
proverbial,  a  natural  disgust  with  capitalistic  control,  and  an  assertion, 
in  the  popular  Plumb  Plan,  that  if  they  were  only  allowed  to  they  could 
show  the  country  how  its  railroad  systems  really  ought  to  be  run.  And 
the  coal  miners,  in  the  face  of  the  tragic  maladjustment  of  production 
to  demand  and  to  distributive  facilities,  in  the  last  few  years,  have  as- 
sailed in  strenuous  terms  the  inefficiency  and  waste  of  the  present  man- 
agement. A  story  is  told  of  an  English  shipyard  during  the  war  where 
the  workers,  angered  at  the  profiteering  and  delaying  methods  of  the 
owners,  took  over  the  contracts  themselves  and  delivered  them  long 
before  the  specified  time.  This  spirit  is  of  course  by  no  means  as  yet 
general;  indeed,  the  counter-charge  of  the  employer,  that  the  prime  cause 
of  his  inefficiency  is  the  failure  of  his  workmen  to  do  all  that  they  might, 
is  probably  not  utterly  devoid  of  truth.  It  only  makes  plain,  however, 
how  the  worker  is  becoming  unwilling  to  continue  working  for  his  em- 
ployer's profits. 

There  is,  moreover,  with  the  growth  in  strength  consequent  upon  the 
war,  an  increasing  desire  for  some  more  efficient  means  than  the  old 
collective  bargaining  for  the  translation  of  existing  power  into  industrial 
control.  Collective  bargaining  is  at  best  diplomacy  and  armed  peace; 
it  is  a  form  of  treaty  making  between  distrustful  and  suspicious  armed 
groups,  usually  occurring  at  the  conclusion  of  or  on  threats  of  a  strike, 
and  very  rigid  and  irresponsive  to  changed  conditions  and  needs.  What 
more  natural  than  to  replace  the  collective  agreement,  arranged  between 
envoys  at  relatively  long  intervals,  with  a  standing  body  or  board  with 
legislative  rather  than  mere  treaty  functions,  a  board  on  which  both 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  223 

employers  and  employees  would  be  represented  and  which  would  pro- 
vide for  continuous  adjustment  rather  than  intermittent  conflicts— 
which,  in  a  word,  would  aim  to  prevent  strikes  by  making  them  unnec- 
essary rather  than  settling  them  after  they  had  arisen?  This  is  the 
change  which  has  been,  more  or  less  fully,  introduced  into  the  clothing 
trades,  which  has  been  proposed  by  the  railways,  and  which  is  effected 
in  various  forms,  more  or  less  sincerely  and  well,  of  shop  organization. 
One  other  tendency,  not  directly  due  to  the  war,  has  operated  to  bring 
matters  to  a  head.  This  is  the  growth  in  interest  among  the  more  in- 
telligent workers  and  their  leaders  in  problems  of  production  and  in- 
dustrial control.  As  a  result  of  our  increased  insight  into  the  springs  of 
human  actions,  and  the  abandonment,  under  the  influence  of  pioneers  in 
social  psychology,  notably  of  Mr.  Graham  Wallas,  of  the  older  over- 
intellectualized  conception  of  human  conduct  for  a  realization  of  the  in- 
finite complexity  of  the  human  mind  and  the  great  variety  of  mysterious 
traits  or  ways  of  acting  we  call  instincts,  the  intellectual  leaders  of  the 
workers  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  trained  employment  managers  of  the 
companies  on  the  other  have  come  to  realize  the  necessity  of  giving  the 
workers  some  opportunity  to  release  their  inheritance  of  productive 
force  and  energy.  The  increasing  mechanization  of  industry  and  the 
reduction  of  the  skilled  laborer  to  the  mere  machine-tender  demand  a 
substitute  for  handicraft  work  as  a  channel  through  which  creative 
energy  can  function,  and  both  leaders  and  employers  are  more  and 
more  seeking  this  channel  in  control  of  the  processes  of  production. 
Hence  the  growth  of  shop-committees  to  share  in  the  administration 
of  plants  and  to  supervise  conditions.  The  employer  for  the  most  part, 
it  is  true,  is  fostering  the  various  forms  of  so-called  "industrial  de- 
mocracy," among  which  a  complicated  system  modeled  upon  the  federal 
government  is  probably  most  popular,  both  because  of  the  increased 
interest  and  production  this  effects  and  because  he  hopes  thereby  to 
keep  out  the  dangerous  national  union.  But  the  more  far-seeing  worker, 
even  when  he  realizes  the  impossibility  of  such  shop  organization  ever 
supplanting  the  large  trade  union,  sees  also  that  the  worker  is  through 
such  participation  in  the  control  of  industry,  meagre  as  it  may  be,  de- 
veloping habits  of  thought  and  interest  in  methods  and  problems  of 
producion  that  will  be  invaluable  for  him  if,  as  the  worker  hopes,  he 
eventually  acquires  a  much  more  important  control  over  industry.  He 
knows  the  employer  is  deceiving  himself  if  he  believes  he  can  thus  bribe 
the  worker  to  forget  his  own  interest;  but  he  also  knows  the  employer 
is  unwittingly  giving  the  worker  training  the  union  most  probably  could 


224  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

not  now  give  him,  and  that  the  business  activities  of  the  unions  need 
supplementing  along  just  such  lines  as  the  shop-committees  indicate. 

Together  with  this  interest  in  the  control  of  production  there  goes 
an  interest  hi  industrial  education  and  training,  which  finds  expression 
in  the  United  Labor  Education  Committee  of  the  New  York  needle 
trades,  the  Workers'  University  of  the  Ladies'  Garment  Workers, 
such  enterprises  as  the  Boston  Trades  Union  College,  established  by 
the  Boston  Central  Federation,  and  the  Seattle  Labor  College  of  the 
Seattle  Federation;  and  the  Workers'  Education  Bureau,  designed  to 
coordinate  all  these  agencies.  Everywhere  efforts  are  being  made  by 
leaders  to  provide  training  in  industrial  technique  to  labor  leaders,  and 
the  workers  themselves,  where  long  hours  do  not  make  this  impossible, 
and  expert  advisers  and  industrial  engineers  are  being  consulted  by 
executive  committees.  The  demand  of  the  capitalists  that  at  all  costs 
production  must  be  kept  up  and  the  public  efficiently  served  are  being 
met  with  specific  proposals  for  increased  efficiency  and  production 
that  hardly  meet  with  the  capitalists'  approval,  but  do  indicate  that 
the  whole  country  has  been  driven  by  the  war  to  think  in  terms  of  so- 
cial production,  social  consumption,  and  social  needs. 

These  especial  factors  have  united  with  the  general  tendencies  of 
the  development  of  business  unionism,  as  outlined  in  Chapter  10,  to 
produce  a  new  type  of  union  with  a  new  type  of  leader — a  type  ap- 
proached both  by  hitherto  conservative  business  unions,  like  the  rail- 
road brotherhoods,  that  have  come  to  transcend  their  own  aims  and 
functions,  and  by  radical  and  socialistic  organizations  like  the  cloth- 
ing unions:  the  industrial  union  participating  in  the  control  of  industry, 
the  democratic,  responsible  union  for  production.  Let  us  examine  a 
few  of  the  specific  indications  that  such  a  unionism  is  really  devel- 
oping hi  the  American  labor  movement. 

First  of  all  there  are  the  railway  unions.  Since  the  seventies  there 
have  been  in  existence  four  powerful  organizations  of  the  skilled  work- 
ers on  the  railroads,  the  Engineers,  the  Firemen,  the  Conductors,  and 
the  Trainmen.  They  have  been  the  aristocrats  of  the  labor  world.  They 
have  been  too  conservative  to  join  the  A.  F.  L.  For  a  long  time  they 
refused  to  adopt  a  "protective"  policy;  they  would  not  even  threaten 
to  strike.  They  have  built  up  the  most  elaborate  system  of  benefits  of 
any  American  unions,  a  system  supposed  to  insure  obedience  and  do- 
cility. They  have  elected  the  most  conservative  leaders  and  kept  them 
in  power  for  long  periods.  They  have  not  troubled  themselves  about 
the  other  workers  on  the  railroads,  the  switchmen  and  the  section- 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  225 

gangs  and  all  the  rest.  They  refused  to  aid  them  in  their  strike  on  the 
Gould  system  in  1886.  They  have  not  had  a  real  strike  themselves 
since  the  Burlington  strike  of  1888.  They  have  preserved  the  typi- 
cal attitude  of  the  small  business  man,  as  well  they  might,  for  after 
the  July,  1920,  award  of  wages  their  pay  runs  from  2500  to  3500  dollars 
a  year. 

Yet  in  the  summer  of  1919,  when  various  plans  of  railway  recon- 
struction were  being  proposed  and  talked  of,  by  an  overwhelming  ma- 
jority in  a  referendum — over  90% — they  voted  to  advocate  and  if 
necessary  enforce  a  proposition  for  government  ownership  of  the  roads 
and  for  operation  by  a  joint  board  of  employees,  management,  and 
government  officials — a  plan  rightly  considered  as  radical  as  any  prop- 
osition yet  put  forward  by  any  of  the  extremest  unions,  and  differing 
not  in  essentials  from  the  theories  of  the  I.  W.  W.  and  the  Communist 
Parties. 

How  is  this  change  to  be  explained?  The  answer  is  simple.  About 
ten  years  ago  the  less  skilled  workers  were,  through  the  foundation  of 
the  Railway  Employe's  Department  of  the  A.  F.  L.,  seriously  taken 
in  hand  and  brought  together.  The  Brotherhoods  had  been  making 
agreements  and  acting  in  closer  and  closer  harmony.  During  the  sum- 
mer of  1916  they  cooperated  in  agitating  for  and  securing  the  eight- 
hour  day  from  Congress.  And  then  came  the  war,  government  control, 
and  the  mushroom  growth  of  the  organizations  of  unskilled  like  the 
shopmen  and  the  maintenance  of  way  men.  For  the  first  time  all  the 
railway  workers  were  brought  together  in  dealing  with  government 
labor  agencies.  All  of  these  things  led  to  a  close  harmony  of  purpose 
and  attitude  between  the  fourteen  railway  unions,  which  has  resulted 
hi  a  virtual  industrial  federation — an  industrialism  that  by  virtue  of 
the  persistence  of  highly  skilled  crafts  on  the  railways  does  not  resem- 
ble the  homogeneous  industrialism  of  the  miners,  for  instance,  but  is 
none  the  less  a  genuine  industrialism.  But  government  control  meant 
more  than  merely  bringing  the  workers  together  for  self -protection; 
for  perhaps  the  first  time  hi  their  experience  the  aim  of  their  labor  was 
to  produce  a  service  to  the  public  and  to  the  aims  of  the  nation.  For 
the  first  time  all  pretense  at  competition  was  given  up  and  efficiency 
and  economy  of  service  made  the  prime  consideration.  And,  for  the 
first  time,  and  in  return  for  loyal  and  productive  work,  the  employees' 
contention  was  recognized  that  to  produce  well  they  must  be  furnished 
with  the  means  and  the  conditions  of  good  production.  President 
Garretson  of  the  Conductors  told  the  Senate  Interstate  Commerce 


226  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Committee  that  the  majority  of  the  men  had  previously  been  advo- 
cates of  private  control,  but  that  the  experience  of  government  control 
had  led  them  to  change  their  minds.1 

But  the  railway  workers  had  not  been  blinded  by  generous  wage 
awards  to  an  uncritical  acceptance  of  Government  ownership  on  the 
old  lines.  Wages,  hi  fact,  were  not  advanced  to  meet  the  increased 
cost  of  living.  From  May  25,  1918,  to  October  i,  wages  for  the  lower 
paid  workers  were  raised  fairly  adequately;  aside  from  an  advance  to 
members  of  the  brotherhoods  in  April,  1919,  nothing  more  was  done, 
in  spite  of  the  rapidly  mounting  cost  of  living.  In  1920  wages  had  ad- 
vanced 73%  over  the  pre-war  level,  and  the  cost  of  living  was  rising 
from  100  to  114%.  And  none  but  the  brotherhoods  had  received  any 
advance  since  the  armistice.  No,  the  Railroad  Administration  was 
not  perfect.  In  the  summer  of  1919  the  workers  were  very  far  indeed 
from  being  satisfied  with  it,  as  the  general  complaints  and  the  shop- 
men's strike  indicated.  Only  President  Wilson's  plea  that  Mr.  Pal- 
mer's anti-profiteering  campaign  be  allowed  to  bring  down  the  cost  of 
living  saved  the  country  from  a  railroad  strike  then. 

Instead  of  urging  the  continuance  of  the  Railroad  Administration,  so 
soon  as  the  armistice  was  signed  the  leaders  of  the  fourteen  unions  got 
together  with  their  joint  counsel,  Mr.  Glenn  Plumb,  to  work  out  a  prac- 
ticable business  plan  for  managing  the  railroads  with  all  the  benefits  for 
public  service  of  centralized  control,  yet  without  the  dangers  of  bureau- 
cratic inefficiency  so  real  to  every  American.  These  officials  knew 
nothing  of  any  radical  philosophies  or  plans  for  the  control  of  industry 
by  the  workers.  They  had  never  heard  of  the  British  national  guild 
movement.  Officers  of  railway  unions  are  too  busy  handling  the  busi- 
ness affairs  of  the  men  they  represent  to  waste  any  time  on  radical 
social  theorizing.  But  they  realized  that  the  old  system  of  railway 
management  in  this  country  had  broken  down,  and  they  were  going  to 
devise  a  new  one  to  propose  to  Congress.  They  carefully  considered 
the  condition  and  the  needs  of  the  railroad  business,  and  they  gradually 
and  thoughtfully  worked  out  a  new  plan.  This  plan  was  presented  to 
the  Senate  Interstate  Commerce  Committee  in  February,  1919,  long 
before  any  other  constructive  proposal,  as  a  business  proposition  that 
would  protect  and  further  the  interests  of  all  concerned,  stockholders, 
employees,  and  general  public. 

This  plan,  though  it  received  little  publicity,  was  considerably  talked 
about  by  the  employees  themselves.  At  the  same  time  discontent  at 
1  American  Labor  Year  Book,  1920,  65. 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  227 

the  failure  of  the  Railroad  Administration  to  effect  another  wage  ad- 
justment was  rapidly  growing.  Men  were  becoming  restive  and  were 
liable  to  strike  without  authorization  from  headquarters.  The  officers 
resolved  to  take  a  referendum  on  whether  they  would  willingly  strike 
for  the  Plumb  Plan,  in  the  hopes  that  they  might  thus  secure  its  pas- 
sage by  Congress,  or  at  least  use  it  to  effect  some  wage  increase — for 
at  this  time  the  men  who  devised  the  plan,  and  Mr.  Plumb  himself,  were 
very  dubious  about  the  reception  it  would  get  from  their  own  men. 
And  they  secured  in  the  referendum  an  astounding  surprise.  The  rail- 
way workers  had  been  thinking  over  the  Plumb  Plan,  and  they  had 
come  to  favor  it — to  favor  it  enough  to  strike  for  it — over  90  per  cent 
of  them. 

The  public  and  the  capitalists  were  horrified.  "Bolshevism"  was 
the  only  term  fit  to  apply  to  such  a  revolutionary  proposal.  Lenin  or 
the  I.  W.  W.  must  be  back  of  it.  So  ran  the  press  editorials,  and  the 
leaders,  who  probably  knew  no  more  than  the  editors  of  Bolshevism's 
economic  program,  were  frightened.  They  feared  that  public  opposition 
would  overwhelm  the  workers,  and  so  they  immediately  shifted  their 
attack  to  other  ground.  Mr.  Gompers,  fearing  the  wave  of  economic 
reaction  sweeping  across  the  country,  drew  back  in  alarm.  And  Con- 
gress passed  the  Esch-Cummins  Bill,  after  a  hard  struggle  on  the  part 
of  labor  to  prevent  an  anti-strike  clause. 

The  essence  of  the  Plumb  Plan  is  production  for  service — efficient 
service  of  a  public  utility  for  the  public  welfare  by  public  servants  who 
are  given  responsibility  for  that  service  and  are  rewarded  as  that  service 
is  successful.  The  country  rejected  the  Plumb  Plan  in  favor  of  the  old 
methods  of  collective  bargaining  and  sound  business  principles.  The 
railway  workers  are  willing  to  accept  the  decision,  to  take  all  they  can 
get  in  wages  from  the  wage  board  of  the  Esch-Cummins  Act  and  then, 
when  the  government  has  withdrawn  its  support  of  the  stockholders,  to 
strike  for  more,  and  get  it.  That  they  are  none  too  well  satisfied,  how- 
ever, with  the  officials  who  failed  to  enforce  their  demand  for  the  Plumb 
Plan  was  revealed  by  the  outlaw  strike  against  them  in  the  spring  of 
1920.  They  have  not  forgotten  the  Plumb  Plan.  Nor  has  the  labor 
movement  as  a  whole,  when  even  the  hand-picked  delegates  of  the  A.  F.  L. 
convention,  against  a  vigorous  opposition  by  Mr.  Gompers  and  the 
whole  Executive  Committee  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Frank  Morrison, 
can  vote  by  a  large  majority  to  support  and  demand  it. 

Once  again  the  efforts  of  the  workers  to  allow  their  second  motive — 
the  strain  of  social  idealism — to  come  to  the  front  have  been  defeated 


228  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

by  the  hostility  of  the  public.  It  evidently  still  prefers  a  labor  trust 
that  will  raise  wage  as  high  as  it  possibly  can — and  it  certainly  has  the 
power  to  raise  them  pretty  high.  But  the  railroad  workers  have  still  the 
Plumb  Plan,  and  when  they  offer  it  again  they  may  strike  for  it  and  se- 
cure it. 

Or  take  the  coal  miners.  They  have  long  been — since  1890 — struc- 
turally the  model  of  an  industrial  union,  a  model  to  which  even  the  I.  W. 
W.  can  only  point  with  admiration.  But  in  policy  they  have  been  the 
very  type  of  business  union,  highly  conservative  and  proceeding  by  collec- 
tive agreements  and  the  rigid  keeping  of  contracts.  The  anthracite  work- 
ers have  been  operating  since  the  strike  and  settlement  of  1902-3  with  a 
system  of  permanent  boards  of  conciliation;  the  bituminous  workers,  fac- 
ing a  highly  decentralized  group  of  competing  employers,  have  made  in- 
dividual and  regional  agreements  interspersed  with  frequent  strikes. 
Soft-coal  mining  is  highly  competitive,  production  depends  largely  on 
fluctuations  in  the  market  conditions,  and  the  price  must  be  high  enough 
to  enable  the  least  efficient  mines  to  make  a  profit,  which  of  course  re- 
sults in  exorbitant  returns  from  the  better  equipped  mines.  Under 
the  Fuel  Administration  some  attempt  was  made  to  secure  organiza- 
tion and  continuity  of  production;  production  for  the  relatively  steady 
public  demand  was  made  the  aim,  not  production  for  the  highly  unstable 
market.  The  miners  of  course  benefited  by  anything  that  increased  the 
most  highly  prized  desideratum  of  their  life,  continuity  of  employment. 
As  a  result  of  this  war-time  experience  with  the  possibility  of  greater 
efficiency,  and  of  another  motive  than  private  profit,  and,  to  some  ex- 
tent, as  an  imitation  of  the  similar  British  movement,  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  miners  became  disgusted  with  the  old  methods  of  business 
unionism  and  of  business  inefficiency,  and  voted  overwhehningly,  in 
their  convention  in  March,  1919,  and  again  in  their  special  conven- 
tion in  the  fall,  for  the  nationalization  of  the  mines  under  democratic 
control,  and  for  a  thirty-hour  week,  five  days  of  six  hours  each,  to  pre- 
vent the  annual  employment  of  only  233  days  out  of  the  year.  The  in- 
efficient and  fluctuating  management  of  the  bituminous  mines  is  the 
special  grievance  of  the  workers,  and  they  have  employed  experts  to  in- 
vestigate the  whole  field  and  reveal  just  where  the  system  of  private  com- 
petition has  proved  itself  wasteful  and  harmful  to  worker  and  to  public. 

The  miners,  then,  seem  at  last  to  be  waking  to  the  possibilities  of  the 
use  of  their  extensive  power  as  an  industrial  union  to  secure  an  actual 
control  over  the  industry.  It  is  highly  significant  that  in  the  nego- 
tiations in  the  spring  of  1920  between  the  United  Mine  Workers  and 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  229 

the  anthracite  operators  for  a  renewal  of  the  agreement  expiring  in  1920 
the  claim  of  the  operators  that  the  breakdown  of  the  coal  supply  is  due 
primarily  to  the  inefficency  and  slacking  on  the  job  of  the  miners  was 
met  with  detailed  and  imforming  analyses  of  the  entire  industry  which 
completely  turned  the  tables  upon  the  operators  and  established  their  in- 
efficiency and  their  pursuit  of  profits  as  the  real  cause  of  the  trouble.  It  is 
merely  another  instance  of  the  importance  that  production  and  the  ser- 
vice of  the  needs  of  the  community  has  been  assuming  in  the  workers' 
minds. 

But  the  most  advanced,  the  most  highly  developed,  and  the  most 
interesting  example  of  the  new  unionism  is  to  be  found  among  the  cloth- 
ing workers.  Ten  years  ago  the  making  of  garments  was  still  carried 
on  under  the  most  primitive  sweatshop  conditions  in  the  slums  of  our 
great  cities;  the  garment  trade  was  without  rival  as  an  example  of  the 
horrors  to  which  modern  civilization  in  its  insistence  on  cheap  commodi- 
ties can  descend.  Today  sweatshops  have  been  abolished,  the  workers 
have  the  44-hour  week,  a  living  wage,  a  permanent  board  of  conciliation, 
and  are  advancing  towards  the  abolition  of  unemployment  and  the 
eventual  control  of  the  industry.  This  result  has  been  obtained  wholly 
by  the  efforts  of  the  workers  themselves  in  their  spontaneous  and  sus- 
tained revolt  against  conditions  as  they  were;  they  could  have  come 
about  through  only  the  loyal  cooperation  of  all,  but  the  outstanding 
figure  and  spokesman  of  the  movement  has  been  the  brilliant  leader 
of  the  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers,  Sidney  Hillman. 

It  is  not  the  place  here  to  relate  in  detail  the  series  of  great  strikes 
and  lockouts  that  were  the  outward  mark  of  this  transformation.  It 
is  rather  to  analyze  the  changes  in  ideas  and  philosophies,  and  to  at- 
tempt to  appraise  the  tendencies  that  have  been  revealed.  For  no- 
where has  the  labor  movement  more  clearly  grasped  the  underlying 
realities  of  the  present  industrial  situation  and  its  probable  future 
developments  than  in  these  garment  trades. 

Although  the  International  Ladies'  Garment  Workers  does  not  differ 
greatly  in  either  spirit,  attitude,  or  achievement  from  the  Amalgamated 
(the  union  of  workers  in  the  men's  clothing  trade),  the  latter  organ- 
ization has  indisputably  led  the  way  since  1914,  and  it  occupies  today 
the  center  of  attraction  in  the  eyes  of  all  interested  in  the  labor  move- 
ment, largely  because  it  possesses  Sidney  Hillman,  although  where  it 
leads  the  Ladies'  Garment  Workers  are  not  far  behind. 

The  Amalgamated  was  formed  by  those  workers  whose  delegates 
were  shut  out  of  the  1914  convention  of  the  United  Garment 


230  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Workers,  an  A.  F.  L.  union  of  the  approved  business  type  with  a  member- 
ship among  the  overall  workers  and  not  much  elsewhere.  The  Amal- 
gamated elected  as  President  Sidney  Hillman,  cutter  in  the  Hart 
Schaffner  and  Marx  shops  in  Chicago  and  representative  of  the  workers 
in  the  shop  agreement  that  firm  made  after  the  great  strike  of  1910. 
That  epoch-making  agreement  had  caused  the  workers,  and  above  all 
Hillman,  to  organize  themselves  and  to  think  and  act  in  terms  of  their 
shop,  the  productive  unit,  not  of  the  union  formed  to  sell  labor.  It  com- 
prised fellow-workers  democratically  elected  by  all  the  employees  in  the 
shop,  not  from  several  skilled  crafts  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  rest. 
Hillman  organized  the  Amalgamated  on  analogous  lines.  It  became  a 
true  industrial  union  and  took  in  all  who  worked  in  or  about  the  shop, 
clerks  and  draymen  as  well  as  cutters  and  pressers.  In  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  old  United  Garment  Workers,  it  requires  a  referendum  for 
every  important  decision.  The  Executive  Board  is  elected  by  referendum ; 
no  strike  can  be  either  called  or  settled  without  one.  And  it  stands 
definitely  for  peace  in  the  industry,  not  armed  peace  marked  by  fre- 
quent battles  and  truces,  but  long  time  agreements  for  the  establishment 
of  permanent  legislative  bodies,  Joint  Boards  and  Boards  of  Arbitration 
with  impartial  chairmen  in  each  field,  and  it  is  working  for  a  national 
agreement  of  the  same  nature.  This  plan  has  met  with  unqualified 
success  wherever  it  has  been  put  into  effect;  the  only  trouble  has  come 
from  individual  employers  who  refused  to  enter  into  the  general  agree- 
ment, but  these  have  nearly  all  come  into  line,  until  now  there  are  but 
four  large  plants  in  the  country  that  have  no  agreement  with  the  Amal- 
gamated. It  can  truly  boast  that  it  has  brought  law  and  order  and 
peace  into  an  industry  where  during  the  last  generation  there  has  been 
very  little  of  anything  save  strife.  And  the  peace  it  has  brought 
is  not  the  peace  of  stagnation — a  long  persistence  of  unchanged  con- 
ditions; it  is  the  peace  of  active  growth  and  advance,  going  forward 
to  a  new  gain  for  workers  so  soon  as  an  old  one  has  been  consummated. 
The  impartial  chairman  of  the  Chicago  district,  Professor  James  H. 
Tufts,  has  laid  down  the  epoch-making  principle  that  the  workers 
are  entitled  not  merely  to  the  maintenance  of  their  standard  of  living 
but  to  an  actual  raising  of  that  standard.  It  is  the  peace  which  elimin- 
ates friction  in  the  process  of  change,  not  the  peace  which  prevents  that 
change.  The  New  Unionism  thus  distinguishes  itself  most  sharply 
from  the  revolutionary  unionism  of  the  I.  W.  W.  or  the  Western  Federa- 
tion of  Miners,  which  refuses  to  make  any  agreements  at  all.  It  is  the 
substitution  for  guerilla  warfare  of  progressive  legislation. 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  231 

To  the  old  demand  for  equality  of  condition  it  has  replied  with  a 
practical  leveling  up  of  wages — an  equalization  hastened  by  the  neces- 
sity in  a  rising  market  of  raising  the  poorest  paid  most.  Though  the 
craft  divisions  are  preserved  for  administrative  purposes,  there  is  no 
longer  the  wide  gulf  between  the  highly  skilled  and  the  less  skilled. 
The  old  system  of  piece-work,  resulting  in  the  terrible  sweating  condi- 
tions and  at  times  the  sixteen-hour  day  of  the  old  rule,  has  been 
abolished  in  favor  of  the  weekly  wage  on  the  basis  of  the  44-hour  week — 
secured  as  the  result  of  a  lockout  by  the  employers  on  armistice  day. 
And  to  the  demand  for  security  and  continuity  of  employment — a 
demand  which  because  of  the  highly  seasonal  nature  of  the  clothing 
trades  is  especially  pressing — it  has  voted,  in  its  1920  convention  at 
Boston,  for  the  establishment  by  the  employers  of  an  unemployment 
fund — a  fund  to  be  used  to  support  workers  during  slack  seasons,  and 
indirectly  a  tremendous  incentive  to  the  employer  to  arrange  for  con- 
tinuous production  in  his  industry.  For  the  Amalgamated  has  at 
length  openly  expressed  the  underlying  notion  of  the  worker  every- 
where, that  unemployment  incident  to  fluctuations  in  the  market  for 
profit  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  worker,  and  that  he  must  be  supported 
by  the  employer  in  dull  periods  just  as  the  machine  and  the  factory  are 
supported,  no  matter  what  the  demand  for  goods.  The  worker  who  en- 
gages in  a  particular  industry  must  be  supported  by  that  industry, 
either  by  continuous  employment  if  the  employers  care  enough  to  ar- 
range it,  or  by  an  unemployment  fund  contributed  by  them  if  they  don't. 
Every  other  union,  if  it  were  strong  enough,  would  make  just  such  a 
demand,  and  every  other  union  as  it  grows  stronger  will  make  it. 

At  the  same  convention  the  Amalgamated  voted  to  establish  cooper- 
ative institutions — also  under  way  by  the  Ladies'  Garment  Workers — 
for  the  distribution  of  clothing,  and  a  cooperative  bank;  it  is  significant 
that  this  step  has  been  paralleled  by  the  railway  brotherhoods. 

But  the  most  significant  factor  of  all  in  the  new  unionism  is  its  growing 
interest  in  production.  Hitherto  radical  movements  have  like  the 
I.  W.  W.  advocated  sabotage  and  the  "conscientious  withdrawal  of 
efficiency"  as  a  weapon  against  the  capitalist.  The  Amalgamated, 
largely  under  the  influence  of  Hillman  and  his  fellow  officers,  has  steadily 
kept  in  mind  its  eventual  aim  of  taking  over  complete  control  of  the 
industry  and  complete  responsibility  for  production,  and  is  constantly 
working  toward  that  goal.  The  organization  of  the  union,  built  up  as 
it  is  about  the  shop  and  not  the  craft,  concerned  as  it  is  with  shop  con- 
ditions and  shop  practices,  cultivates  a  direct  sense  of  responsibility  in 


232  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

and  consequently  responsibility  for  the  production  of  clothing.  In  the 
Boston  convention  the  question  of  the  establishment  of  standards  of 
production — measurements  of  work  and  requirements  of  output — came 
up  for  discussion,  and  though  the  old  slavery  of  the  task  system  of  the 
sweatshops  still  rankled  in  the  minds  of  the  workers,  and  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  opposition,  a  substantial  majority  for  the  grading  of  all 
workers  into  certain  classes  and  their  demotion  if  their  weekly  output 
fell  below  that  of  their  class,  with  a  consequent  decrease  in  wages,  was 
secured  by  Hillman's  appeals.  This  system  of  standard  had  already 
been  established  in  the  large  Sonneborn  shops  in  Baltimore,  instituted 
by  the  workers  and  under  the  workers'  control;  and  Hillman,  Schloss- 
berg,  and  the  other  officers  were  firmly  convinced  of  its  value — a  value 
not  to  the  worker  alone,  in  preparing  him  and  educating  him  for  the 
assumption  of  greater  control,  but  above  all  a  value  to  the  industry,  and 
to  the  industry  as  a  public  service.  Mr.  Hillman  said:  "We  officers 
understand  that  the  principle  of  our  organization  is  to  deal  with  the 
employers  so  that  the  rights  of  our  people  will  always  be  protected. 
But  it  is  not  our  purpose  to  protect  them  against  work.  Employers 
demand  safeguards  against  decreased  production  when  we  demand 
increased  wages.  And  we  stand  for  production;  we  want  shorter  hours 
to  give  you  more  leisure  and  more  money  to  ensure  better  living  con- 
ditions, but  I  refuse  to  be  a  party  to  a  vicious  campaign  of  labor  against 
production.  The  greatest  enemies  of  our  organization  are  those  who 
speak  against  production.  For  such  a  policy  would  ultimately  be  our 
downfall."  l 

And  to  prove  the  sincerity  of  this  attitude,  the  officers  have  succeeded 
in  enforcing  discipline  upon  their  members, — a  disciplinary  power 
freely  granted  them  by  vote,  and  not  a  discipline  assumed  by  them  to 
keep  their  authority — and  upon  that  bane  of  the  clothing  trades,  the 
minor  labor  official  who  is  seeking  to  aggrandize  himself  at  the  expense 
of  the  workers  and  the  employer.  Several  such  were  recently  tried  and 
removed  in  New  York;  three  were  expelled  from  the  union.  In  Chicago, 
where  the  collective  agreement  is  much  older,  the  "bad"  leader  is  al- 
most unknown.  A  New  York  shop  recently  suffered  badly  from  sabotage : 
the  officers  investigated  and  gave  the  employers  permission  to  dismiss 
the  entire  force.  In  other  days  this  would  have  meant  at  once  a  general 
strike.  No  leader  would  employ  such  tactics  if  he  were  not  sure  of  the 
support  of  his  followers,  and  if  he  were  not  firmly  impressed  with  the 
importance  of  production. 

1  New  York  Evening  Post,  May  13,  1920. 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  233 

For  Hillman  and  the  Amalgamated,  while  they  are  radical — even 
revolutionary — in  their  advocacy  of  the  overthrow  of  the  capitalistic 
system  and  the  control  and  administration  of  the  means  of  production 
by  the  workers — the  body  is  quite  solidly  socialistic,  and  voted  its 
sympathy  with  the  Russian  Republic — do  not  consider  that  the  Revo- 
lution will  usher  in  the  millennium.  In  fact,  they  do  not  pay  much  at- 
tention to  the  Revolution  at  all.  They  are  too  busy  trying  to  develop 
in  their  workers  the  habits  of  responsibility,  the  technical  knowledge, 
the  genuine  ability,  to  assume  under  collective  agreements  greater  and 
greater  control  of  the  industry  as  it  is  now.  They  would  not  welcome 
any  responsibility  placed  upon  the  worker  before  he  is  ready  for  it.  But 
their  every  move  is  always  made,  not  only  in  the  light  of  its  immediate 
beneficial  effect,  but  also  in  the  light  of  its  influence  in  educating  the 
worker  for  the  assumption  of  greater  responsibilities.  They  do  not 
disclaim  political  action,  they  consider  it  necessary  as  the  legal  system 
is  outgrown;  but  they  are  not  national  socialists,  they  look  forward, 
with  the  miners  and  the  railroad  workers,  and  with  far  greater  foresight 
and  realization  of  the  burdens  involved  than  either,  to  the  eventual 
national  ownership  of  industry  with  democratic  control  through  the 
unions. 

The  Ladies'  Garment  Workers  has  not  yet  secured  the  permanent 
establishment  of  collective  agreement  machinery,  as  has  the  Amalgam- 
ated. Agreement  with  employers'  organizations  still  comes  at  the  end 
of  the  strikes  and  runs  till  new  strikes  break  out;  and  shop  strikes  are 
frequent.  The  44-hour  week,  and  the  substitution  of  weekly  wage  for 
piece-work  has  been  effected  in  imitation  of  the  Amalgamated;  and  the 
union  is  trying  to  build  up  an  "  American  standard"  psychology  amongst 
the  week  workers  so  that  they  will  give  a  day's  work  for  a  day's  wage. 
But  the  union  has  not  yet  taken  the  momentous  step  of  compelling  its 
members  to  live  up  to  standards  of  output. 

But  hi  all  other  particulars,  in  democratic  organization,  in  indus- 
trialization, in  general  philosophy  and  spirit,  it  closely  approximates 
the  men's  clothing  union.  And  since  1910  it  has  had  a  permanent  or- 
ganization with  the  employers,  the  Joint  Board  of  Sanitary  Control, 
that  has  eliminated  the  sweatshop  and  greatly  improved  working  con- 
ditions. And  it  is  just  as  much  interested  in  production,  and  the  social 
value  of  learning  its  technique.  It  has  employed  production  engineers 
to  devise  more  efficient  methods.  Both  it  and  the  Amalgamated  have 
done  remarkable  work  in  the  education  of  their  members,  in  genuine 
Americanization. 


234  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

These  few  outstanding  examples  of  the  New  Unionism  by  no  means 
exhaust  the  number  that  might  be  cited.  There  are  very  few  unions 
indeed  that  have  not  in  then*  rank  and  file  come  to  demand  something 
more  than  the  traditional  amis  and  methods  of  business  unionism.  What 
the  future  will  bring  forth,  no  one  can  say;  but  it  is  difficult  to  under- 
stand how  these  tendencies,  born  as  they  are  out  of  technological  con- 
ditions dependent  upon  the  progress  of  the  industrial  revolution,  can 
fail  of  eventual  fruition. 

To  summarize,  the  aims  of  the  New  Unionism,  then,  are:  i.  To  secure 
the  greatest  possible  bargaining  power  through  industrial  organization, 
as  a  means  to  the  attainment  of  further  ends.  2.  To  work  for  the  ends 
of  business  unionism  as  temporary  and  immediate  expedients,  higher 
wages  and  shorter  hours.  3.  To  secure  continuity  of  employment  and 
an  assured  position  hi  the  industrial  system.  4.  To  prepare  themselves 
to  assume  a  larger  and  larger  share  hi  the  control  of  industry,  and  hence, 
in  accordance  with  the  double  strain,  to  tram  themselves  to  think  in 
terms  of  production  and  industrial  technique,  and  of  social  responsibil- 
ity. 5.  Thus  to  realize  the  old  democratic  ideal  of  an  approximate 
equality  of  status  and  remuneration  together  with  differentiation  of 
function,  of  liberty  of  fulfilling  their  creative  impulses  through  the 
directing  of  their  own  activities,  and  of  fraternity  and  cooperation  in 
the  social  community. 

And,  to  serve  this  newer  tendency,  that  has  been  in  progress  much 
longer  in  Europe  than  in  this  country,  there  has  arisen  a  new  social 
philosophy — a  philosophy  of  economic  and  industrial  federalism  which 
under  various  names — guild  socialism,  syndicalism,  democratic  control, 
industrial  democracy — is  coming  more  and  more  to  express  the  aspira- 
tions, not  only  of  the  more  thoughtful  workers,  but  also  of  the  intelligent 
and  professional  classes  everywhere.  Vlt  is  Utopian — all  social  philosophies 
are  Utopian,  none  more  so  than  the  dreamings  of  the  economic  liberalism 
and  individualism  which  is  still  the  orthodox  philosophy  of  today.  It 
portrays  an  ideal  which  in  its  very  definiteness  is  too  selective  and 
limited  to  include  the  rich  and  complex  fabric  of  human  existence. 
Like  all  such  Utopian  ventures,  it  must  not  be  taken  too  literally;  its 
value  lies  rather  in  the  iUumination  and  clarification  it  can  furnish  to 
the  particular  and  specific  problems  of  economic  organization  and 
industrial  technique  than  hi  the  immediate  practical  possibility  of  ever 
realizing  any  such  social  structure,  or,  indeed,  in  the  desirability  of 
doing  so  \i  we  could.  The  main  features  of  the  ideal  commonwealth — 
its  great  industrial  units  of  workers  banded  together  to  produce  com- 


Growth  of  Class  Solidarity  and  the  New  Unionism  235 

modities  through  a  democratic  organization,  with  a  central  governing 
and  adjusting  body  composed  of  representatives  from  all  industries, 
either  alone  or  in  connection  with  a  political  congress  of  consumers — 
these  are  familiar  today  to  all  well-informed  people.j^The  details  re- 
main just  as  vague  as  the  main  lines  are  distinct;  and  critics  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding,  that  really  doesn't  matter.  For  the  signifi- 
cance of  such  a  vision  is  rather  its  imperative  force,  its  driving  power 
when  burned  into  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  workers  throughout  the 
lands  of  the  world.  Whatever  of  approach  is  ever  made  to  such  an 
ideal  can  not  depend  upon  the  theoretical  working  out  of  an  abstract 
plan  into  the  very  last  detail.  If  it  needed  such  a  lesson  at  all,  the  world 
learned  it  in  the  celerity  with  which  the  Russian  revolutionists  forgot 
most  of  the  Marx  they  ever  knew  and  faced  realities.  It  can  only  come 
as  the  result  of  patient,  laborious,  and  repeated  experience  with  the 
concrete  problems  of  particular  industries,  and  of  harmonizations  and 
adjustments  between  conflicting  interests  worked  out  in  the  very  toil 
and  moil  of  economic  life — hi  a  word,  it  can  come  only  as  the  result  of 
some  such  educative  process  as  the  New  Unionism  seems  to  be  developing. 


PART  II 
GROUP  RESPONSIBILITY 


f  GROUP  RESPONSIBILITY— THE  PROBLEM 


IN  our  examination  of  the  present  industrial  situation  we  have  seen 
that  society  today  is  rapidly  approaching  a  state  wherein  it  is  economically 
organized  into  a  number  of  great  industrial  groups,  groups  essentially 
monopolistic  and  as  yet  at  least  socially  quite  irresponsible.  In  contrast 
with  this  prevailing  state  of  affairs  it  has  become  apparent  that  coincident 
with  the  formation  of  these  great  groups,  society  has  developed  an 
increasing  need  for  efficient  and  continuous  service  from  each  of  these 
component  groups. 

The  history  of  the  growth  of  these  groups  has  revealed  a  double  tend- 
ency: a  tendency  to  think  solely  in  terms  of  particular  group  interests, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  interests  of  other  groups  or  of  wider  interests; 
this  tendency  has  been  called  group  individualism,  and  has  been  explained 
as  the  old  traditional  philosophy  of  individualism  and  economic  liberal- 
ism revised  and  brought  up  to  date  through  the  substitution  of  the  mod- 
ern unit,  the  group,  for  the  older  and  original  unit,  the  single  human 
being:  and  a  tendency  to  be  concerned  with  social  problems,  social  needs, 
and  social  aims,  and  to  merge  group  interests  into  those  of  the  community 
as  a  whole.  Both  tendencies  have  become  accentuated  of  late,  group 
interest  leading  to  huge  industrial  struggles  in  which  those  not  directly 
concerned  suffer  almost  as  much  as  the  participants  themselves,  and  social 
idealism  leading  to  class-conscious  revolutionary  efforts  at  the  alteration 
of  the  structure  of  the  economic  regulation  of  industry.  And  between 
them  both  tendencies  threaten  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  industrial 
system  as  we  know  it  today,  the  first  through  a  catastrophic  break-down 
of  the  actual  technique  of  production  itself,  and  the  bringing  about  of  a 
chaotic  state  somewhat  resembling  that  which  the  war  effected  in 
Central  and  especially  East  Central  Europe;  the  second,  through  a 
radical  overturn  of  the  legal  and  economic  structure  through  which  that 
indus trial  technique  is  controlled,  which  has  its  parallel  in  the  situation 
obtaining  in  Russia  after  the  November  revolution. 

With  the  second  of  these  tendencies,  and  with  the  dangers  it  presents, 
we  do  not  purpose  to  deal  here;  for  in  America  this  danger  is  remote 
indeed.  There  is  in  this  country  no  problem  of  an  extreme  social  idealism 
that  might  exemplify  here  the  strong  as  well  as  the  weak  points  of  a 


240  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

fanaticism  which,  like  that  of  Cromwell  and  that  of  Lenin,  verges  upon 
the  theocratic  rule  of  the  chosen  vessels  of  the  Lord.  The  problem  of 
social  idealism  in  America  is  not  the  problem  of  reconciling  its  too-zealous 
impulses  with  the  patient  and  realistic  appreciation  of  the  psychological 
needs  of  the  prevailing  situation.  The  American  problem  of  social  ideal- 
ism is  rather  how  to  fill  what  at  present  appears  to  be  a  yawning,  gaping 
void. 

But  the  first  of  the  tendencies  presents  a  quite  different  aspect.  The 
experience  of  the  nation  in  the  post-armistice  days,  the  many  strikes 
and  industrial  conflicts  that  threatened  the  continuance  of  certain  very 
vital  public  utilities,  and  the  certainty  that  when  the  era  of  business 
prosperity  subsides  such  strikes  will  become  much  more  serious  and 
bitter|Xior  it  has  always  been  in  the  face  of  a  reduction  hi  wages  during  a 
business  depression  that,  as  in  1877,  in  1885-6,  and  in  1893-4,  labor  has 
fought  most  fiercely)  and  the  even  more  serious  prospect  of  probable 
future  increases  in  wages  to  higher  and  higher  levels,  perhaps  in  collusion 
with  the  employer,  have  made  it  imperative  that  some  way  be  found  out 
of  this  general  group  individualism  to  a  group  social  responsibility.  Nu- 
merous attempts  at  devising  some  such  plan  for  securing  the  account- 
ability of  labor  groups  to  society  as  a  whole  have  been  put  forward, 
ranging  from  the  official  A.  F.  L.  solution  of  forthwith  giving  the  workers 
everything  they  demand  to  the  official  pronouncements  of  chambers  of 
commerce  to  declare  all  strikes  illegal  and  enforce  production  at  "reason- 
able" wages  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  law.  Despite  the  generally  inter- 
ested nature  of  the  loud  heralding  of  "  the  rights  of  the  public  to  uninter- 
rupted and  efficient  service"  by  press  and  business  man,  the  emphasis 
thus  placed  on  efficient  production  not  only  serves  to  illuminate  a  problem 
of  the  utmost  consequence,  but  it  can  also  hardly  fail  to  have  its  effect 
upon  the  workers  themselves  in  transforming  them  hi  their  eyes  from 
useless  "hands"  to  necessary  public  servants.  Unfortunately  if  such  an 
emphasis  becomes  too  patently  subservient  to  the  interests  of  the  em- 
ployers, the  workers  may  unwisely  but  quite  naturally  be  driven  all  the 
further  into  their  own  group  individualism. 

This  state  of  affairs  has  already  given  rise  to  a  new  social  theory, 
that  of  "pluralism."  It  has  been  developed  both  by  legalists  seeking  to 
make  jurisprudence  conform  more  closely  to  the  social  interests  it  should 
serve,  and  by  economic  Utopians  in  search  of  a  new  social  order.  This 
theory,  while  exceedingly  interesting  and  illuminating,  unfortunately  has 
not  as  yet  given  much  practical  knowledge  that  will  enable  society  to 
meet  the  problem  of  securing  social  responsibility  in  the  component 


Group  Responsibility — The  Problem  241 

groups  that  make  up  the  community.  And  the  basic  reason  for  the 
inadequacy  that  has  hitherto  in  greater  or  less  degree  marked  the  theories 
of  the  pluralists  has  been  the  practical  non-existence,  under  any  theory  of 
individualism,  be  its  unit  the  man  or  the  group,  of  any  such  concept  as 
social  responsibility. 

Tb^the  individualist  there  is  but  one  kind  of  social  responsibility — it  is 
the  responsibility  of  the  government  to  those  who  have  elected  it,  its 
responsibility  to  dispense  justice,  to  protect  from  external  aggression, 
and,  in  general,  to  furnish  certain  services  to  individuals.  It  is  a  responsi- 
bility in  typical  utilitarian  vein  to  serve  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number.  In  America,  in  France,  and  in  practice  if  not  in  theory  in 
England,  the  individualist  theory  is,  in  the  terms  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  that  governments  exist  to  secure  the  rights  of  individ- 
uals, and  endure  only  so  long  as  they  do  secure  them.  They  are  respon- 
sible to  the  people  for  thus  securing  them. 

Of  course,  in  the  very  limited  sphere  of  activity  that  the  government 
was  supposed  and  permitted  to  serve,  the  individual  had  a  reciprocal 
obligation  and  responsibility.  He  was  obliged  to  assist  in  the  defense  of 
the  country,  he  was  obliged  to  contribute  taxes  to  the  support  of  the 
government,  and  he  was  obliged  to  refrain  from  that  interference  with  the 
rights  of  other  men  known  as  crime.  But  aside  from  this  very  definite  and 
rigorously  circumscribed  obligation,  the  individualistic  theory  recognized 
no  such  thing  as  obligation  to  society.  Society,  in  so  far  as  such  a  concept 
of  the  whole  as  distinct  from  its  constituent  parts  is  at  all  comprised  in 
the  individualistic  theory,  has,  in  the  vast  range  of  social  activity  known 
as  economic,  only  a  responsibility  to  keep  each  man  free  from  intrusion 
by  his  neighbor;  there  is  no  reciprocal  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the 
individuals  to  do  anything  for  society. 

This  being  the  case,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  apologists  for  group 
individualism  and  pluralism  similarly  tend  to  overlook  the  question  of 
the  responsibility  of  their  groups  to  society.  This  comes  out  in  the  case 
of  Mr.  Laski,  who  favors  a  society  composed  of  economic  groups,  the 
differences  between  which  are  to  be  adjudicated  through  impartial  courts 
whose  establishment  and  maintenance  he  regards  as  the  essential  function 
of  the  state.  This  plan,  in  strict  conformity  with  the  individualistic 
theory,  and  with  the  liberalism  of  which  he  is  so  able  an  advocate,  recog- 
nizes perfectly  the  obligation  of  the  state  to  keep  one  group  from  infring- 
ing upon  the  prerogatives  of  another;  the  court  is  the  best  instrument 
for  securing  a  careful  determination  and  adjustment  of  rights.  But  his 
plan  disregards,  and  his  courts  hardly  touch,  the  important  question  of 


242  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

the  determination  and  the  fulfillment  of  duties  and  obligations  of  the 
groups  to  that  collective  whole  called  society. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  must  be  confessed  that  of  those  pluralists  who 
approach  the  problem  from  the  standpoint  of  jurisprudence,  Mr.  Laski, 
while  giving  an  admirable  survey  and  analysis  of  the  present  situation, 
and  clearly  revealing  the  large  measure  of  irresponsible  power  or  "  sover- 
eignty" that  resides  today  in  various  groups,  economic  and  otherwise, 
against  which,  to  say  the  least,  the  government,  as  the  organized  instru- 
ment of  society  as  a  whole,  finds  it  exceedingly  inopportune  to  proceed, 
nevertheless  does  not  offer  any  clearly  defined  program  for  meeting  such  a 
situation,  and  does  not  in  fact  seem  to  regard  it  as  a  situation  which 
particularly  needs  to  be  met  otherwise  than  by  a  recognition  of  its  exis- 
tence and  an  adjustment  of  legal  theory  to  fait  accompli.  M.  Duguit,  the 
great  jurist  of  Bordeaux,  can  not  be  accused  of  falling  into  the  same  error; 
but,  it  seems  to  the  candid  reader,  however  great  his  admiration  be  for  the 
glowing  ideal  M.  Duguit  holds  out  of  a  society  of  functional  groups  whose 
sole  thought  shall  be  of  the  service  they  are  rendering  to  the  community, 
and  whose  only  rights  are  those  privileges  granted  by  the  community 
that  it  may  be  the  more  efficiently  served,  the  French  savant  has,  after 
the  way  of  legalists,  and  especially  of  French  ones,  rather  overlooked  the 
psychological  nature  of  man  and  the  obstacles  it  presents  to  a  realization 
of  such  an  ideal.  Between  M.  Duguit's  wholly  admirable  but  rather 
remote  ideal  and  Mr.  Laski's  penetrating  analysis  of  a  not  entirely  admir- 
able state  of  affairs,  the  social  observer,  and,  it  may  be,  the  practical 
statesman,  desire  some  intermediate  step,  some  method  or  at  least  some 
faint  indications  of  how  to  formulate  a  method  for  the  passage  from  the 
one  state  to  the  other.  Jurists,  great  as  their  ability  may  be,  do  not  and 
perhaps  should  not  be  called  upon  to  descend  to  such  practical  con- 
siderations. 

The  economic  reformers  have,  it  is  true,  given  more  of  consideration 
to  this  important  question  of  how  the  admittedly  group  individualistic 
society  of  today  can  be  brought  nearer  to  the  admittedly  desirable  and 
necessary  society  in  which  groups  are  actuated  by  a  sense  of  their  social 
responsibility;  but,  after  the  manner  and  wont  of  radicals,  they  have  been 
too  prone  to  consider  it  entirely  in  the  light  of  conditions  that  are  to 
obtain  after  The  Revolution,  a  light  which,  however  theoretically  inter- 
esting, hardly  suffices  to  illumine  the  gloom  of  these  pre-revolutionary 
days.  Syndicalists,  guild  socialists,  economic  federalists  of  all  sorts  and 
varieties,  have  in  general  taken  one  of  two  courses:  they  have  assumed 
that  in  those  idyllic  times  after  The  Day  there  will  be  an  impartial  and 


Group  Responsibility — The  Problem  243 

wholly  just  central  authority  or  state,  which  will  enforce  social  interests 
on  any  particularly  recalcitrant  and  self -seeking  group;  or,  if  they  be  very 
radical  indeed,  and  very  much  incensed  against  the  state,  they  have 
assumed  that  with  a  central  authority  entirely  abolished  men  will  just 
naturally  prefer  the  good  and  interest  of  all  to  their  own  private  group 
interests,  and  will  not  think  of  using  their  economic  power  to  aggrandize 
themselves  at  their  fellows'  expense.  Both  types  assume  that  the  real 
class  solidarity  and  cohesion  necessary  to  bring  about  The  Revolution 
will  naturally  persist  after  the  great  enemy  who  has  called  it  forth  is 
utterly  overthrown  and  vanquished. 

Now  these  claims  may  possess  considerable  of  truth,  but  at  the  same 
time  they  betray  the  characteristic  faults  of  too  great  utopianism — a 
one-sidedness  bred  of  undivided  and  earnest  vision,  an  impatience  with 
irritating  details  like  human  nature  born  of  an  abiding  faith  in  general 
principles,  and  a  consequent  tendency  to  slur  over  the  real  and  vital 
problems.  Moreover,  they  remain  strictly  hypothetical,  dependent  upon 
The  Revolution  for  their  verification.  Unfortunately  the  problem  will 
not  also  obligingly  wait.  Let  us,  therefore,  proceed  to  an  examination 
of  the  problem  as  it  presents  itself  to  society  at  the  present  stage  of  its 
development,  without  reference  to  possible  future  transformations, 
and  let  us  take  it  up  as  it  is  phrased  by  the  two  schools  of  social  control 
and  of  free  development,  of  socialism  and  anarchism,  if  you  will,  or  of 
autocracy  and  liberalism,  if  you  so  prefer. 

The  most  natural  and  probably  the  first  formulation  of  the  problem 
of  securing  social  responsibility  in  the  groups  comprising  the  community 
is  that  which  regards  it  as  one  of  enforcing,  by  the  government  and 
through  suitable  penalties,  the  efficient  functioning  of  groups  from  with- 
out. This  is  the  recognition  by  law  that  groups  are  legally  responsible 
to  the  will  of  the  majority  who  control  the  government.  It  is  the  in- 
stinctive reaction  of  the  irate  householder  who,  finding  himself  unable 
on  the  eve  of  winter  to  obtain  coal  and  all  the  miners  out  on  strike  for 
iiigher  wages,  quite  naturally  wants  to  send  somebody  "to  make  'em 
]lig  coal."  Now  this  way  of  approaching  the  problem  would  certainly 
/  >e  revolutionary,  for  the  very  basis  of  our  civilization  has  been  that  a 
man  had  the  right  to  do  what  he  likes  with  his  own,  whether  that  own 
be  labor  or  property.  And  when  such  an  outcry  is  raised  against,  say, 
the  packers,  and  the  same  householder  grumbles,  "  The  government 
ought  to  make  'em  put  their  prices  down,"  the  law  in  all  its  majesty 
intervenes  and  protects  the  sacred  rights  of  property  against  even  the 
duly  elected  Congress  and  President  of  the  United  States,  which  cannot 


244  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

confiscate  property  "without  due  process  of  law."  To  recognize,  then, 
that  the  majority  can  thus  legally  and  effectually  enforce  production 
of  commodities  which  may  be  assumed  to  be  necessities,  is  to  alter  pro- 
foundly our  legal  and  economic  system  and  to  deny  that  a  man  may  do 
what  he  likes  with  his  own; 

But  assume  that  this  radical  procedure  is  adopted;  the  assumption 
is  far  from  rash,  for  chambers  of  commerce,  editors,  and  a  considerable 
portion  of  "the  public"  is  already  quite  willing  to  enforce  production — 
upon  labor  unions,  at  least — what  can  we  say  of  its  efficacy  and  its  prob- 
able results?  How  will  it  operate  to  secure  that  steady  and  efficient 
production  that  society  needs? 

It  is  a  comparatively  simple  affair  to  enforce  the  will  of  a  majority 
upon  a  territorial  unit;  the  world  has  just  finished  with  a  tremendous 
example  of  just  such  enforcement,  though,  to  be  sure,  it  is  somewhat  of 
a  question  whether  the  results  in  central  and  eastern  Europe  represent 
the  will  of  the  majority  of  the  Allies.  Military  power,  bullets  and 
machine  guns  can  generally  accomplish  it,  or  the  mere  threat  and  cer- 
tainty that  they  will  be  used.  So  long  as  it  is  a  question  of  preventing 
a  minority  from  doing  something,  and  is  thus  essentially  a  problem  of 
suppression  and  repression,  the  majority  can  eventually  have  its  way. 
But  when  the  desire  of  a  majority  is  to  compel  the  minority  to  do  some- 
thing positive,  the  outcome  is  far  more  dubious.  Thus  it  is  compara- 
tively easy  to  suppress  a  Sinn  Fein  government  in  Ireland,  but  all 
the  power  of  the  British  Empire  had  a  hard  time  of  it  to  compel  the 
Irish  people  to  obey  and  live  under  a  British  government.  Quite  sim- 
ilarly it  is  simple,  if  you  have  enough  power,  to  force  Germans  out  of 
France  and  to  force  the  cession  of  Alsace-Lorraine;  but  when  it  comes 
to  getting  as  much  coal  as  you  want,  or  as  large  an  indemnity,  you 
find  innumerable  annoying  obstacles  in  your  way. 

And  when  the  problem  shifts  from  a  territorial  minority  that  can  be 
conquered  in  a  military  sense  to  a  minority  which  is  a  functional  group, 
the  difficulty  becomes  even  more  acute.  To  force  a  functional  group 
to  do  something  positive  which  they  are  resolved  not  to  do  is  a  task 
to  test  the  ability  of  the  firmest  dictator.  As  the  old  adage  has  it,  "  You 
can  lead  a  horse  to  water,  but  you  can't  make  him  drink. "  The  Ger- 
mans found  it  out  in  Belgium,  the  Northerners  found  it  out  in  the 
South,  and  the  French  are  finding  it  out  in  Germany. 

Of  course  it  is  possible  to  secure  results  of  a  sort  if  you  are  determined 
enough.  Most  miners  would  rather  mine  coal  than  be  shot,  and  if  you 
have  enough  bayonets  coal  can  certainly  be  got  out.  But  such  methods, 


Group  Responsibility— The  Problem  245 

though  undoubtedly  entirely  possible,  are  not  of  a  nature  to  prove 
widely  practicable.  Entirely  apart  from  any  psychological  considera- 
tions as  to  whether  a  majority  of  Americans  would  permit  the  adoption 
of  such  tactics,  it  seems,  on  the  face  of  it,  that  as  a  remedy  for  the  in- 
sufficient or  inefficient  production  of  coal  it  would  not  in  the  long  run 
be  practicable.  This  is  admittedly  a  very  extreme  case,  but  it  is  cru- 
cial, for  it  makes  plain  that  mere  power  to  enforce  the  will  of  a  ma- 
jority upon  a  functional  group  is  not  the  only,  and  perhaps  not  the 
most  important,  element  necessary  for  the  securing  of  social  responsi- 
bility. 

In  fact,  the  greatest  contribution  of  the  pluralists  like  Mr.  Laski  is 
just  this  fact  of  the  ultimate  "sovereignty"  or  ability  to  resist  com- 
pulsion resident  in  groups.  The  same  householder  who  wanted  govern- 
ment to  apply  pressure  to  the  miners  and  the  packers,  whenever  he 
desires  a  remedy  for  a  certain  ill,  immediately  thinks  first  of  all  of  "pas- 
sing a  law  against  it. "  He  is  unaware  of  the  profound  truth  the  liberals 
have  recognized,  and  which  the  socialists  and  other  apostles  of  "social 
control"  have  not  yet  learned,  that  there  are  many,  many  things  that 
legislation  and  direct  social  control  cannot  effect.  Bismarck  found  it  out 
when  the  Catholics  and  the  Social  Democrats  beat  him  and  forced  him  to 
go  to  Canossa.  The  Bolsheviki  are  finding  it  out;  and  the  American 
Congress  would  find  it  out  if,  for  instance,  it  passed  a  law  breaking  up 
the  family.  It  is  a  commonplace  that  the  prohibition  of  liquor  be- 
longs in  the  same  category;  if  there  be  anywhere  a  large  minority  se- 
riously desirous  of  a  drink  of  whiskey,  no  army  of  inspectors  can  pre- 
vent them  from  getting  it. 

It  would  seem  that  the  efficient  production  of  commodities  is  to  be 
placed  in  the  same  category  of  actions  which  no  legislative  fiat  can 
effect,  and  government  authority  can  enforce  only  with  the  utmost 
difficulty.  For  while  the  mere  working — the  mere  tending  of  machines — 
is  quite  possible  to  enforce  by  sufficient  penalties,  the  efficient  produc- 
tion of  a  large  supply  is  infinitely  more  difficult.  Sabotage — not  the 
sabotage  of  destruction,  but  the  sabotage  practiced  by  conservative 
business  unionists  as  the  "deliberate  withdrawal  of  efficiency" — sabot- 
age and  lowered  output  is  bound  to  result.  The  French  government, 
by  calling  all  railway  workers  to  the  colors  and  making  striking  a  court- 
martial  offense,  succeeded  in  crushing  the  great  railway  strike  of  1910. 
And  forthwith  the  French  railways  lapsed  into  a  most  woeful  state  of 
inefficiency.  Accidents  would  happen;  cars  would  turn  up  hundreds  of 
miles  from  their  proper  destination;  men  would  insist  on  obeying  every 


246  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

rule  in  the  book  literally  when  a  little  discretion  might  have  prevented 
a  wreck  or  a  tie-up.  And  in  this  case  the  government,  by  waving  the 
flag  of  German  invasion,  applied  an  exceedingly  powerful  patriotic 
motive  as  well  as  mere  force.  The  government  was  indeed  vindicated; 
but  it  still  remains  a  question  whether  the  country  as  a  whole  would 
not  have  been  infinitely  better  off  had  the  demands  of  the  strikers  been 
granted. 

It  is  significant  that  in  those  countries  where  the  greatest  restrictions 
are  placed  upon  the  labor  unions  and  upon  strikes,  like  France,  Italy, 
and  Spain,  revolutionary  unionism  employing  sabotage  and  violence  is 
most  strong  and  dangerous.  It  is  a  tenet  of  the  American  tradition 
that  repression  of  grievances,  whether  those  grievances  be  just  or  whether 
they  be  unjust,  is  the  sure  road  to  revolt;  and  the  candid  observer  of 
history  is  forced  to  admit  that  there  is  considerable  evidence  in  its 
support.  It  may  then  be  fairly  predicted  that  recourse  to  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  will  of  the  majority  upon  a  functional  group,  even  if  it  were 
successfully  effected,  would  but  drive  union  activities  underneath  the 
surface,  to  break  out  in  sporadic  revolts. 

Moreover,  to  be  at  all  successful,  the  method  of  repressing  and  en- 
forcing responsibility  implies  the  presence  of  an  impartial  state — a 
state  in  which  all  concerned,  both  parties  to  any  grievance,  can  repose 
the  utmost  confidence  that  it  will  decide  questions  and  adopt  policies 
only  after  the  most  painstaking  and  unbiassed  research,  and  that  its 
decisions  will  be  based  on  premises  which  all  parties  admit  to  start  with. 
The  present  government,  in  all  criminal  and  in  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  civil  cases,  is  such  an  impartial  adjudicator.  The  few  exceptions 
are  the  faults  and  dishonesties  inevitable  in  any  human  institution. 
And  our  criminal  and  civil  law  is  accepted  as  just  by  the  parties  whom 
it  most  concerns. 

But  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  the  economic  interests  of  groups, 
it  is  just  as  unquestionable  that  the  present  state  is  certainly  not  im- 
partial. With  the  presence  in  the  economic  fabric  of  various  great 
conflicting  interests,  it  is  too  much  to  ask  any  human  individual  to 
preserve  a  frigid  impartiality.  When,  for  instance,  there  come  to  trial 
men  who  do  not  accept  the  basic  hypotheses  upon  which  the  present 
state  and  the  judge  who  loyally  supports  it  proceed,  that  judge  can 
not  be  impartial.  It  is  like  asking  a  loyal  and  patriotic  citizen  to  judge 
impartially  of  the  reports  of  the  enemy's  atrocities.  Human  nature, 
save  in  very  rare  cases,  simply  is  not  cast  in  such  heroic  mold.  The  best 
the  state  can  do  in  the  face  of  conflicting  economic  interests  is  to  side 


Group  Responsibility — The  Problem  247 

with  that  side  which  the  individual  judge  thinks  right,  and  endeavor,  so 
far  as  in  him  lies,  to  be  fair  to  the  other  side. 

Precisely  an  analogous  case  is  that  of  any  international  tribunal,  any 
supreme  court  of  a  league  of  nations  whose  decrees  are  to  be  enforced. 
Where  disputes  of  minor  importance  are  to  be  brought  up,  it  is  easy  to 
be  impartial,  and  firm  hi  integrity;  but  where  vital  national  interests 
are  concerned,  where  "national  honor,"  that  illusory  but  highly  im- 
portant entity,  is  at  stake,  no  international  court  can  possibly  be  ex- 
pected to  render  absolutely  just  decisions,  and  hence  no  international 
police  to  enforce  peace  is  as  yet  at  all  possible. 

It  must  be  admitted  by  detached  observers  that  even  the  highest 
courts  in  the  land  are  today  dominated  by  conflicting  class  interests, 
that  judges  of  different  antecedents  necessarily  proceed  upon  different 
hypotheses,  and  that,  for  instance,  while  a  judge  whose  social  philos- 
ophy derived  from  Herbert  Spencer  and  one  who  got  his  from  Karl 
Marx  can  be  trusted  to  agree  perfectly  and  to  render  a  quite  just  de- 
cision on  the  merits  of  a  plea  to  grant  retrial  in  a  murder  case,  they 
will  of  necessity  differ  radically  in  their  interpretation  and  application 
of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.  In  the  middle  of  the  last  century  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court  undoubtedly  enjoyed  a  much  higher  rep- 
utation for  impartiality  than  it  has  throughout  the  country  today;  yet 
at  the  present  time  there  are  few  so  blind  as  to  deny  that  during  the 
whole  slavery  struggle  the  Supreme  Court  was  anything  but  impartial. 
When  the  supposedly  impartial  court  handed  down  its  crucial  Dred 
Scott  decision,  almost  the  entire  North  absolutely  rejected  it,  and  six 
years  later  by  force  effected  a  sweeping  reversal  of  its  principles.  Is 
it  reasonable  to  expect  that  the  passions  aroused  by  economic  con- 
flicts, just  as  bitter  and  vital,  are  to  be  calmed  by  an  impartial  state, 
a  state  which  claims,  and  probably  sincerely  believes,  that  it  is  act- 
ing for  the  best  interests  of  the  entire  community?  The  Dred  Scott 
decision  was  not  enforced,  and  it  is  dubious  whether  any  decision  to- 
day that  seemed  as  unrighteous  as  that  one  did  to  the  North  could  be 
enforced. 

The  possibility  of  enforcement  appears  to  be  dependent  upon  the 
confidence  which  those  to  be  coerced  have  in  the  essential  impartiality 
of  the  government.  That  confidence  and  that  impartiality,  as  regards 
economic  interests,  are  certainly  lacking  today;  nor  does  it  seem  at  all 
possible  that  in  any  post-revolutionary  state  they  would  be  present 
to  any  greater  degree.  Certainly  Russia  and  Hungary,  the  only  two 
examples  we  have  to  date,  do  not  seem  to  have  advanced  especially  on 


248  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

"capitalistic"  governments  in  their  impartiality  towards  men  of  all 
economic  interests  and  faiths. 

Moreover,  even  if  it  did  exist,  it  would  be  well-nigh  impossible  to 
convince  the  workers  of  such  an  impartiality  so  long  as  the  enforcement 
of  responsibility  meant  first  of  all  and  primarily  the  enforcement  of 
responsibility  to  the  employer,  and  deprived  the  worker,  to  the  open 
glee  of  the  capitalist,  of  the  only  weapon  he  possesses  to  advance  his 
own  interests.  With  such  a  complete  coincidence  of  the  employer's 
interest  and  the  assumed  interest  of  the  community  at  large,  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  see  how  the  unionists  could  regard  the  enforcement  as  a  matter 
of  good  faith. 

In  fact,  the  employment  of  coercive  means  for  the  enforcing  of  re- 
sponsibility is  exceedingly  apt  to  increase  resentment  at  the  selfish  "pub- 
lic, "  and  to  provoke  far  more  of  disorganization,  inefficiency,  discord, 
and  group  selfishness  than  it  could  possibly  eradicate  and  suppress. 
As  a  single  instance,  the  passage  of  the  Kansas  law  to  prevent  strikes 
resulted  in  a  great  strike  of  miners  who  had  not  before  dreamt  of  strik- 
ing at  all.  This  could  hardly  be  considered  a  successful  increase  in  pro- 
ductivity in  a  public  utility. 

Moreover,  if  the  method  of  enforcing  responsibility  is  to  have  any 
success,  it  must  succeed  by  educating  the  workers  to  a  position  in  which 
they  will  not  need  the  actual  application  or  even  the  threat  of  force  to 
secure  their  obedience.  If  the  average  citizen  needed  a  bayonet  to  keep 
him  from  breaking  the  criminal  statutes,  those  statutes  could  not  fairly 
be  called  practicable.  And  it  is  quite  apparent  that  the  issuing  of  in- 
junctions broadcast,  the  quelling  of  strikes  with  troops,  and  other  tac- 
tics of  a  like  nature,  however  successful  they  may  be  in  preventing  open 
industrial  warfare,  are  scarcely  methods  likely  to  result  in  the  ed^ 
ucation  of  the  worker  toward  social  responsibility.  It  is  indeed  the 
worst  possible  course  that  could  be  adopted  to  effect  such  an 
end. 

''r  Thus  our  general  examination  of  the  first  of  the  two  suggested  lines 
of  approach  to  the  problem  has  resulted  in  the  conclusion  that  though 
the  enforcement  of  responsibility  is  perhaps  ultimately  possible,  its 
employment  is  fraught  with  so  many  perils  and  difficulties  that  it  is 
exceedingly  dubious  whether,  save  in  cases  of  extreme  emergency,  and 
as  a  measure  of  the  very  last  resort,  it  would  prove  in  any  sense  prac- 
ticable; and  that  it  is  certain  to  result  in  defeating  the  very  aim  toward 
which  it  is  directed,  the  ultimate  development  of  an  attitude  of  social 
responsibility  in  place  of  the  present  group  individualism.  If  there  is 


Group  Responsibility — The  Problem  249 

any  other  possible  method  of  achieving  this  end,  it  is  certainly  deserv- 
ing of  the  most  careful  examination. 

But  let  us  proceed  to  consider  several  more  concrete  proposals  of 
those  who  pin  their  faith  in  the  enforcement  of  responsibility  through 
the  political  government.  Though  for  obvious  reasons  not  often  ad- 
vocated as  a  permanent  method  of  settling  anything,  the  means  most 
popular  and  most  frequently  employed  in  practice  has  been  the  in- 
junction. This  is  a  legal  instrument,  devised  in  an  age  when  labor  un- 
ions were  yet  undreamed  of,  for  protecting  property  rights  from  irrepar- 
able injury  for  which  there  is  no  remedy  at  law.  It  was  invented  to  restrain 
parties  in  dispute  about  title  or  damages  to  property  from  interfering 
with  the  property  before  the  courts  had  passed  on  the  title.  It  has 
since,  in  contradiction  to  many  fundamental  legal  principles,  been  ex- 
panded in  scope  to  enforce  criminal  law  and  to  abridge  personal  rights 
and  liberties.  It  is  not  a  criminal,  but  a  civil  instrument,  which  means 
that  the  offense  in  disobeying  it  is  contempt  of  court,  and  that  offense 
requires  no  jury  trial.  The  penalty  for  disobeying  it  is  not  great;  but 
the  value  of  the  injunction  as  a  means  of  preventing  a  strike  lies  in  its 
power  to  nip  such  a  movement  in  the  bud;  it  introduces  delays  into  a 
situation  where  every  movement  counts.  Hence  it  has  been  frequently 
employed  by  the  employer  everywhere  to  crush  strikes  and  labor  ac- 
tivity; and  its  complete  identification  with  the  employer  and  the  cap- 
italist serves  to  render  it  all  the  more  damning  and  odious  in  the  work- 
ers' eyes  when  employed  in  behalf  of  "the  public." 

The  injunction  as  a  method  of  enforcing  social  responsibility  is  thus 
liable  to  every  disadvantage  to  which  any  method  of  enforcement  is 
subject,  it  has  none  of  the  possible  advantages  of  other  methods,  and 
in  addition  it  has  the  special  demerits  of  a  very  doubtful  foundation 
in  legal  principles  and  of  being  applied  without  investigation  of  any 
sort  by  a  single  judge.  It  is  a  method  to  which  organized  labor  is  al- 
ready bitterly  opposed.  It  is  the  very  height  of  the  "public's"  attitude 
of  peace  at  any  price;  for  it  is  adapted  to  secure  nothing  but  immediate 
peace,  and  the  price  is  continuous  warfare. 

Another  proposal  is  that  of  incorporating  the  unions  and  making 
them  liable  at  law  to  keep  their  contracts  and  to  pay  damages  in  case 
of  non-fulfillment.  This  proposal  overlooks  the  absence  of  any  means 
of  the  union  going  into  bankruptcy  if  it  finds  performance  of  the  agreed 
services  impossible.  It  has  the  additional  disadvantage  of  making  the 
responsibility  exclusively  to  the  employer,  and  providing  no  stimulus 
whatever  to  the  growth  of  social  obligation.  There  would  be  no  social 


250  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

control  over  the  nature  of  the  contract;  it  would  be  the  apotheosis  of 
business  unionism  with  all  its  faults.  It  seems,  indeed,  as  though  the 
unions  will  increasingly  observe  their  agreements  without  any  such 
elaborate  safeguards,  if  our  conjectures  as  to  the  New  Unionism  be 
at  all  verified.  The  making  of  union  funds  subject  to  damage  suits 
could  only  result  in  the  carrying  on  of  union  activities  with  very  small 
funds — in  a  word,  in  the  introduction  into  business  unionism  of  the 
tactics  of  the  I.  W.  W.:  violence,  destruction,  and  "striking  on  the  job." 
But  the  remedy  most  popular  just  now,  and  which  is  indeed  in- 
finitely preferable  to  the  other  suggested,  is  that  of  compulsory  arbitra- 
tion. It  recognizes  the  obligation  of  the  labor  groups  to  the  community 
as  a  whole,  and  it  also  recognizes  the  reciprocal  obligation  of  the  com- 
munity to  the  labor  group  to  see  that  it  secures  fair  treatment.  Under 
an  impartial  administration,  an  administration  whole-heartedly  devoted 
to  the  welfare  of  every  member  of  the  community  and  hence  whole- 
heartedly devoted  to  the  welfare  of  the  workers  also,  such  a  plan  of  en- 
forced responsibility,  if  greatly  aided  by  other  conditions,  might  have  a 
chance  of  succeeding.  But  where  can  an  impartial  administration  which 
shares  the  workers'  aim  of  practical  equality  and  security  of  position 
for  every  member  of  society  be  found,  and  could  such  an  administra- 
tion, strictly  speaking,  be  impartial?  Moreover,  the  very  fact  that 
such  a  body  would  legally  have  the  power  to  prevent  a  strike  so  preju- 
dices the  worker  against  it  that  it  could  hardly  attain  the  universal 
confidence  necessary  for  success.  And  it  is  excessively  undemocratic; 
it  entrusts  to  a  small  body  of  men  who  it  assumes  will  "do  the  right 
thing"  absolute  power.  It  asks  the  workers  to  hand  over  their  only 
weapon,  and  promises  they  can  get  what  is  good  for  them  without  it. 
The  workers,  already  sadly  disillusioned  as  to  the  promises  of  govern- 
ment authorities,  are  not  going  to  do  any  such  thing.  It  may  well  be 
benevolent,  very  benevolent  and  paternalistic,  but  it  is  despotism  never- 
theless. No  body  of  men  is  good  enough  to  entrust  such  momentous 
power  to.  The  American  worker,  even  if  he  thought  that  from  their 
hands  he  would  receive  precious  gifts,  instinctively  would  reject  such 
offerings  and  though  it  cost  him  much  would  prefer  to  rely  on  his  own 
exertions.  Hence,  as  an  expedient  for  the  enforcement  of  social  responsi- 
bility, compulsory  arbitration  is  not  successful;  where  it  has  been  tried, 
in  Canada  and  in  Australasia,  it  has  either  been  discarded  or  remained 
a  dead  letter.  Both  workers  and  business  men,  in  centering  their  at- 
tention upon  the  strike-prevention  side  and  overlooking  the  arbitration 
features,  are  probably  not  very  far  wrong. 


Group  Responsibility — The  Problem  251 

Foreign  experience  has  proved  that  such  a  board  of  arbitration  has  an 
equalizing  effect  upon  working  conditions:  it  tends  to  raise  all  workers 
to  a  single  standard,  and  hence  is  of  great  benefit  to  the  lower  class  of 
sweated  workers.  But  that  standard,  upon  which  all  decisions  are 
made,  becomes  fixed  and  stationary;  and  the  workers,  growing  in  power 
and  vision,  become  intensely  dissatisfied  with  the  whole  scheme  and 
strike  anyway.  When  the  workers  once  decide  to  strike, — well,  the  whole 
dubious  impracticability  of  enforcing  decisions  upon  them  is  brought 
home.  Any  system  which  allows  things  to  reach  the  stage  in  which  the 
workers  are  resolved  to  strike  is  a  foregone  failure. 

Yet  if  compulsory  arbitration  is  not  the  answer  to  the  problem,  it 
has  nevertheless  within  it  the  germs  of  great  good.  It  can  become,  with 
certain  modifications,  an  immensely  valuable  educative  instrument; 
and  it  can,  if  administered  with  sympathy  and  integrity,  do  much  to 
secure  that  social  responsibility  at  which  it  aims.  To  achieve  such  an 
effect,  its  compulsory  features  must  first  be  entirely  abandoned;  only 
thus  can  the  all-important  confidence  of  the  workers  be  obtained.  The 
success  achieved  by  Canada's  arbitration  act  has  been  due  entirely  to 
the  virtual  abandonment  of  the  anti-strike  feature.  Then,  it  must 
cease  to  be  a  judicial  tribunal  and  become  an  administrative  and  legisla- 
tive council,  in  which  not  a  judge  or  arbitrator  alone  makes  decisions, 
but  in  which  the  democratically  elected  representatives  of  the  two 
parties  are  allowed  to  act  together.  The  Kansas  Industrial  Court  plan 
is  fundamentally  wrong,  not  only  in  its  compulsory  features,  but  even 
more  in  regarding  its  function  as  judicial.  Its  crowning  folly  is  to  be 
governed  by  the  rules  of  evidence — a  provision  making  intelligent 
decision  by  the  industrially  inexpert  judges  almost  impossible.  For  a 
court  is  essentially  retrospective;  it  interprets  past  agreements  and 
standards,  and  exists  only  to  settle  disputes  after  they  have  once  risen. 
Industry  demands  instead  a  council  that  will  erect  new  standards,  that 
will  plan  for  the  future,  adjust  rates  and  scales  and  conditions  as  need 
for  their  change  arises,  that  will  eliminate  the  causes  of  disputes  before 
they  are  generated,  and,  in  general,  administer  and  legislate  for  the 
industry.  The  Industrial  Court  has  all  the  faults  and  all  the  pitiful 
futility  of  the  International  Court  of  Arbitration  at  The  Hague;  a  court 
without  a  legislator  and  an  administrator  is  a  monstrosity.  But  for 
such  a  genuine  cooperative  administration  of  industry,  such  a  council 
would  needs  be  made  up  of  experts  in  that  field,  with  perhaps  an  impartial 
chairman  representing  the  interests  of  the  consumer.  And  so  we  have 
arrived,  not  at  compulsory  arbitration,  but  at  something  very  different 


2$ 2  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

indeed — something  very  similar  to  the  boards  and  councils  in  the  men's 
clothing  trade,  and  just  what  the  new  unionism  stands  for.  And  en- 
forced responsibility — it  has  vanished  in  the  process. 

Thus  none  of  the  specific  methods  for  enforcing  social  responsibility 
contains  anything  to  alter  the  conclusion  that  such  enforcement  is  of 
highly  dubious  practicability,  and  the  most  promising  of  them,  on  being 
followed  up,  leads  to  an  entirely  different  method.  We  are  thus  driven 
to  a  further  examination  of  the  very  bases  of  political  and  social  ob- 
ligation, and  to  a  search  for  the  reason  why  men  obey  "authorities." 

The  question  of  group  responsibility  can  not  be  settled,  as  the  irate 
householder  thought,  merely  by  making  a  law  against  it.  That  may 
be  necessary.  But  that  alone  is  bound  to  be  hopelessly  inadequate. 
The  question  of  responsibility  depends  ultimately  on  the  grounds  on 
which  men  obey  constituted  authorities  of  any  kind,  political,  religious, 
economic.  These  have  never  been  adequately  determined,  and  it  is 
probable  that  until  our  social  psychology  has  made  such  more  progress 
over  its  present  crude  state  they  never  will  be.  But  one  thing  at  least 
is  certain:  that  the  police  power  of  the  state,  its  power  to  enforce  its 
will,  or  the  will  of  those  who  have  captured  it,  is  not  the  primary  basis 
of  political  obligation.  If  not  the  active  consent,  at  least  the  passive 
assent  of  those  governed  is  essential  to  the  continuance  of  that  govern- 
ment. Men  must  feel  that  it  is  to  some  extent  representative  of  their 
desires  and  purposes,  at  least  sufficiently  representative  to  keep  them 
from  going  to  the  exertion  of  throwing  it  off.  In  large  measure  this 
feeling  of  assent  and  acceptance  is  the  result  of  habit  and  the  inertia  of 
established  ways  and  customs  persisting  after  their  most  efficient  work 
is  done — habit  drilled  into  the  individual  from  his  birth  by  every  in- 
strumentality of  education  and  social  life. 

Political  obligation  is  thus  at  bottom  the  result  of  education  and 
trained  habituation.  All  the  agencies  of  collective  existence  are  con- 
stantly impressing  upon  the  individual  the  importance  of  law  and  order, 
the  importance  of  observing  the  ordained  social  rules  and  regulations. 
Hence  the  normal  individual  is  so  habituated  and  trained  to  act  in  con- 
formity with  certain  standards  and  rules  that  he  simply  does  not  think 
of  anything  else.  The  normal  citizen  does  not  break  the  law,  and  he 
fails  to  break  it,  not  because  the  police  would  prevent  him,  not  even 
because  he  is  afraid  the  police  will  get  him  if  he  does,  but  simply  be- 
cause he  has  formed  the  habit  of  obeying  the  law.  Why  he  formed  the 
habit  is  immaterial;  it  may  have  been  because  of  the  fear  of  the  penalty, 
it  may  have  been  because  of  religious  tabus  and  the  fear  of  future  tor- 


Group  Responsibility — The  Problem  253 

ments,  it  may  have  been  because  he  came  to  recognize  as  good  certain 
moral  ideals,  it  may  have  been  because  everybody  about  him  obeyed 
the  law,  or  it  may  have  been  because  of  a  mixture  of  all  these.  The 
important  thing  is  that  these  are  all  differing  means,  more  or  less  effi- 
cacious, toward  the  education  of  the  individual  and  the  development 
of  moral  habits,  moral  ways  of  acting.  Man  obeys  constituted  authority 
because  he  has  been  trained  to  do  so;  the  best  way  to  secure  his  obedience 
is  to  employ  the  best  way  of  educating  him  in  habits  of  obedience  and 
response  to  social  rules.  Anything  that  will  develop  in  him  fixed  re- 
sponses to  social  demands  is  bound  to  lead  naturally  to  his  becoming  a 
good  citizen;  anything  which,  even  though  like  the  bayonet  of  the 
tyrant's  mercenaries  it  secured  present  acquiescence  in  the  will  of  the 
government,  does  not  so  tend  to  develop  moral  habits  of  social  response, 
is  at  best  but  artificial  and  must  be  applied  continually  and  with  in- 
creasing intensity  to  secure  that  social  response  that  has  not  become 
habitual. 

All  groups  thus  tend  to  educate  their  members  into  habitual  response 
to  the  chosen  mores  or  codes  of  those  groups:  the  doctor  acts  in  accord 
with  medical  ethics,  the  lawyer  in  accord  with  the  standards  of  his 
profession,  church  members  in  accord  with  the  customs  of  their  par- 
ticular sect.  Nowhere  is  this  habitual  response  to  the  demands  of 
the  group  stronger  than  in  the  case  of  labor  unions;  and  this  same  habitua- 
tion  is  rapidly  growing  among  the  entire  body  of  workers  as  a  class. 
This  habitual  loyalty  is  also,  in  the  average  individual,  directed  toward 
the  nation  or  community  as  a  whole  in  certain  channels  which  from  long 
custom  have  been  impressed  upon  all  men:  in  the  field  of  legal  regula- 
tion, patriotism,  and  the  like.  It  has  not  appeared  in  the  field  of  eco- 
nomic production,  because  society  has  not  here  recognized  any  standard 
of  production  for  social  needs,  any  production  for  the  sake  of  "the 
public."  Since  the  triumph  of  economic  liberalism  business  and  in- 
dustry have  been  divorced  from  every  thought  of  social  responsibility. 
It  has  not  as  yet  occurred  to  any  one  to  expect  it.  The  business  man 
has  not  had  such  a  principle  hi  his  code,  the  trade  unionist  certainly 
has  not,  and  until  very  recently  no  one  even  expected  it  in  the  name 
of  the  " public"  or  the  community.  We  had  all  been  taught  that  the 
correct  thing  was  to  obey  the  law  and  do  as  well  as  we  could  for  our- 
selves in  a  business  way.  We  succeeded  in  this  fairly  well  because  there 
were  very  few  laws  in  the  realm  in  which  we  were  advancing  ourselves 
that  we  could  disobey.  We  never  thought  of  our  responsibility  to  the 
community  because  we  did  not  realize  the  necessity  of  social  obligation. 


254  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

Today  in  a  crude  and  blundering  way  we  are  beginning  to  recognize 
this  necessity  if  our  civilization  is  not  to  crumble  away;  but  we  are  not 
at  all  used  to  the  thought,  and  we  are  very  prone  to  follow  our  old  habits 
of  group  individualism. 

The  problem  of  the  social  responsibility  of  groups,  then,  it  is  clear,  is 
not  fundamentally  a  problem  of  how  to  enforce  a  new  standard  and 
aim  upon  groups  that  have  become  accustomed  to  far  different  ones. 
It  is  not  what  kind  of  a  law  we  can  pass  against  group  individualism, 
how  we  can  put  down  its  now  unpleasant  manifestations.  Such  a  view 
is  superficial  in  the  extreme. '  The  problem  of  group  responsibility  is  at 
bottom  a  problem  in  the  education  of  the  entire  community  toward  the 
adoption  of  a  relatively  new  social  principle — new,  that  is,  to  those 
brought  up  in  the  chaotic  competitive  system  of  individualism  and 
economic  liberalism,  though  in  jeality  as  old  as  Plato,  who  wrote  his 
wonderful  Republic  about  it/It  is  to  develop  a  new  habit  of  mind,  a 
new  way  of  responding  to  our  social  environment,  a  new  way  of 
thinking  and  acting — or  to  rediscover  an  old  one. 

If  the  problem  thus  be  at  bottom,  as  in  truth  most  really  important 
social  problems  are,  a  problem  of  education,  then  the  immediate  question 
is,  what  means  are  the  best  for  so  training  ourselves?  When  economic 
groups  follow  their  own  interests  too  exclusively,  the  solution  we  must 
seek  must  be  approached  always  with  the  educative  value  of  whatever 
measures  we  adopt  in  the  foreground.  If  we  contemplate  the  use  of  force 
on  refractory  bodies  of  men,  we  must  employ  it  solely  as  a  means  to  our 
larger  end  of  educating  those  bodies  in  habits  of  social  responsibility,  else 
we  shall  have  sacrificed  permanent  good  for  a  brief  temporary  respite,  and 
have  bought  immediate  peace  at  the  price  of  an  unending  succession  of 
further  wars.  Force  applied  for  the  sake  of  the  immediate  attainment  of 
our  object  is  autocratic  and  can  get  us  nowhere;  but  force  applied  in  the 
process  of  education  is  often  essential.  This  must  be  our  final  answer  to 
those  who  advocate  the  immediate  suppression  of  strikes. 
fTThe  problem  with  which  we  set  out  has  thus  in  essence  become  one  of 
'  education  in  the  broadest  sense,  of  what  social  institutions  and  what 
measures  of  social  control  will  best  seize  upon  the  social  aims  and  social 
responsibility  already  present  or  still  dormant  in  the  labor  movement  and 
increase  and  foster  them.  The  problem  is  thus  not  the  simple  one  of  de- 
vising a  new  law  or  a  new  government  instrumentality;  it  is  immensely 
more  difficult  than  that.  It  implies  the  necessity  of  a  psychological 
change  of  attitude  and  a  moral  change  of  heart  in  the  various  conflicting 
groups  of  present  day  society.  It  implies  a  gradual  turning  away  from  the 

7 


Group  Responsibility— The  Problem  255 

old  and  a  turning  toward  the  new.  To  those  individuals  looking  for 
panaceas  to  cure  at  one  dose  all  the  ills  of  society,  to  those  reformers  who 
imagine  that  legislative  enactments  can  in  themselves  bring  social  sal- 
vation, to  those  optimistic  radicals  who  believe  that  the  destruction  of  any 
institution,  even  though  it  be  the  great  institution  of  the  "capitalistic 
system"  itself,  can  bring  about  the  millennium  and  create  on  earth  the 
New  Jerusalem — to  such  men  the  problem  may  well  appear  insuperable 
as  they  hurry  off  to  their  far  easier  tasky  But  if  our  industrial  civiliza- 
tion, dependent  as  it  is  upon  the  efficient  functioning  of  all  its  component 
groups,  is  to  continue  as  an  industrial  civilization,  some  solution  must  be 
found,  and  that  at  no  very  remote  time.  That  some  solution  will  be 
found,  those  who  as  a  result  of  the  last  six  years'  brutal  futility  are  not 
grown  profoundly  pessimistic  over  the  entire  body  of  mankind  will  be 
confident.  But  that  solution  is  not  going  to  be  easy.  We  have  as  yet 
discovered  hardly  any  fragments  of  a  solution.  It  is  only  as  political 
invention  and  social  philosophy,  doffing  their  gay  but  useless  holiday 
garb  of  optimism  and  complacency,  descend  to  the  economic  field  where 
the  battle  for  the  future  of  the  world  is  now  being  fought  back  and  forth 
and  there  patiently,  persistently,  and  painstakingly  labor  and  experiment 
at  the  tremendous  task,  that  the  body  of  society,  grown  sick  with  the 
cancer  of  malignant  and  self-centered  irresponsibility,  can  ever  hope 
to  be  healed. 


i4.  THE  PROBLEM  AS  AN  ESSAY  IN  EDUCATION 

IN  this  final  chapter,  having  envisaged  the  problem  of  the  attainment 
of  group  responsibility  as  essentially  a  problem  in  education,  the  most 
that  can  be  done  is  to  point  out  certain  tendencies  in  the  social  situation 
that  make  that  problem  seem  a  not  wholly  impossible  task.  It  will  thus 
be  a  stock-taking  of  resources  rather  than  an  attempt,  even  the  slightest, 
at  a  formulated  method,  a  stock-taking  based  on  what  evidences  of  social 
responsibility  have  appeared  in  the  history  of  the  American  labor  move- 
ment and  of  its  attempts  at  organization,  and  on  the  forces  and  tendencies 
at  work  in  the  present  industrial  and  economic  ferment  which  seem  to  be 
making  for  the  education  of  industrial  groups  in  habits  of  social  obliga- 
tion. 

In  general,  it  would  seem  that  in  every  situation  which  is  to  develop 
and  train  responsibility  five  factors  are  necessary,  five  factors  which, 
though  in  varying  degree,  must  nevertheless  to  some  extent  all  be  present 
to  make  the  process  truly  educative  and  productive  of  responsible  habits.- 
The  first  of  these  is  a  situation  in  which  cooperative  endeavor  is  abso- 
lutely essential  to  the  fulfillment  of  individual  purposes.  This  is  apparent 
in  all  cases  of  team-work,  where  the  individual,  to  fulfill  his  private  pur- 
pose of  winning  and  winning  for  his  team,  must  cooperate  effectively  with 
the  other  members.  The  desire  to  make  brilliant  plays  cannot  lead  such  a 
team  member  to  neglect  this  cooperative  effort,  because  no  play  can  be 
really  brilliant  if  it  neglects  the  essential  quality  of  aiding  the  work  of  the 
team.  The  futility  of  attempting  cooperation  where  this  necessity  for 
mutual  aid  and  assistance  is  lacking  is  obvious. 

But  not  only  must  this  social  action  be  necessary;  the  individuals,  by 
group  opinion  or  by  some  system  of  rewards  and  penalties,  must  be  held 
responsible  for  the  performance  of  the  tasks  which,  within  their  power  of 
accomplishment,  it  is  their  portion  to  perform.  No  matter  how  necessary 
the  cooperation  of  the  members  of  a  team  may  be,  unless  they  realize  that 
necessity,  hold  individual  members  to  a  strict  accountability  for  their 
actions,  and  create  such  a  sentiment  and  group  opinion  that  offenders 
against  it  are  promptly  censured  and  lose  caste  and  group  standing,  that 
team  will  never  be  a  success.  The  necessity  for  cooperation  must  be 
present,  and  it  must  be  consciously  present,  crystallized  into  group 
opinion. 


The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education  257 

But  it  must  not  only  be  present  in  the  group  at  large;  every  individual 
member  must  have  a  clear  recognition  of  that  necessity,  and  a  clear 
knowledge  of  just  what  is  expected  of  him.  The  man  who  can  not  do 
team-work  is  the  man  who  does  not  recognize  that  team-work  is  neces- 
sary, and  does  not  realize  the  part  he  must  play  in  the  actions  of  his  group. 
When  his  individual  responsibility  is  clearly  brought  home  to  him,  it  is 
usually  as  though  a  new  light  had  dawned  upon  his  mind;  the  transfor- 
mation is  at  times  surprisingly  rapid.  Mr.  Thomas  Mott  Osborne  has 
recently  given  some  most  astounding  demonstrations  of  the  possibility  of 
thus  awakening  in  those  who  previously  had  had  the  least  sense  of  respon- 
sibility of  any  in  the  community,  the  professional  criminals,  a  very  real 
and  a  very  strong  sense  of  responsibility  to  the  group  when  they  are 
placed  in  a  situation  where  their  cooperation  is  required  and  expected. 

Such  cooperation,  moreover,  must  be  a  mutual  attitude  of  give  and 
take — the  responsibility  can  not  be  directed  solely  to  the  group  without  a 
recognition  of  a  reciprocal  obligation  toward  the  members.  In  a  team  the 
individuals  are  required  to  give  their  best  to  the  team's  aims,  but  in 
return  they  demand  that  the  rest  of  the  team  stand  by  them.  A  member 
who  feels  that  his  fellows  are  not  playing  fair  with  him — not  giving  him 
the  opportunity  to  do  the  best  he  can,  not  supporting  him  and  giving  his 
own  advice  and  opinions  careful  consideration — such  a  member  will  not 
be  loyal  to  the  team.  Loyalty  can  not  be  one-sided;  it  can  not  thrive 
unless  it  is  mutual.  As  directed  toward  persons  it  is  an  inheritance 
from  feudalism  and  chivalry,  and  in  its  original  form  the  loyalty  of  the 
vassal  to  the  lord  imposed  upon  the  lord  an  obligation  to  protect  that 
vassal.  In  the  more  modern  form  of  loyalty  to  a  group,  it  necessarily  im- 
poses upon  that  group  the  obligation  of  protecting  the  loyal  members. 
This  mutual  responsibility  is  well  expressed  in  the  saying  of  Solon  which, 
significantly  enough,  has  won  great  popularity  in  the  ranks  of  the  labor 
movement,  "An  injury  to  one  is  an  injury  to  all." 

Finally,  for  the  development  of  social  habits  of  response,  there  is 
necessary  a  dominant  and  clear  group  purpose — a  common  group  aim,  not 
in  any  sense  superseding  or  contradicting  the  private  aims  of  the  mem- 
bers, but  become  a  very  part  and  parcel  of  those  individual  aims,  merging 
imperceptibly  into  them  and  extending  them  further.  It  is  for  the  sake 
of  this  group  aim  that  cooperation  is  necessary;  it  is  to  the  attainment  of 
this  group  aim  that  men  are  loyal,  that  they  play  their  parts,  and  unite 
with  their  fellows  in  mutual  loyalty  and  cooperative  endeavor.  It  is 
where  this  group  aim  is  clearest  and  most  appealing,  as  in  the  desire  of  an 
athletic  team  to  win  a  contest,  or  in  the  desire  of  a  great  army  to  win  a 


258  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

war  for  a  high  ideal — defense  of  hearth  and  home,  overthrow  of  autoc- 
racy, securing  of  national  independence — that  the  situation  develops  the 
strongest  sense  of  group  loyalty  and  responsibility. 

Such  is  the  situation  that  must  prevail  if  habits  of  social  responsibility 
are  to  be  developed  and  fostered.  It  is,  to  some  extent  of  course,  present 
in  every  group  and  community  of  men;  that  is  what  Aristotle  meant 
when  he  said,  "Man  is  by  nature  an  animal  who  forms  states."  The 
ability  of  men  to  respond  to  group  aims  and  group  ends  is  what  deter- 
mines his  existence  in  society,  and  is  in  turn  reciprocally  determined  by 
it.  Social  responsibility  is  thus  something  inherent  in  the  very  nature  of 
mankind;  without  it  he  would  not  be  man.  It  is  not,  as  egoistic  and 
individualistic  theorists  have  argued,  something  totally  alien  to  man's 
nature,  something  artificial  that  can  only  be  evoked  by  appealing  to  the 
motives  of  self-interest  through  reward  and  punishment.  Fortunately 
our  better  knowledge  of  the  springs  of  human  action  has  overthrown  so 
erroneous  a  view. 

Such  a  situation  prevails  within  the  labor  union,  and  has  succeeded 
remarkably  in  breaking  down  the  old  attitude  of  irresponsible  individual- 
ism in  favor  of  a  real  and  habitual  group  activity.  A  dominant  group 
purpose,  cooperation  absolutely  necessary  to  attain  it,  the  conscious 
realization  of  the  necessity  of  this  cooperation,  the  recognition  by  the 
individual  of  what  he  must  do  to  help  attain  it,  an  attitude  of  mutual 
loyalty  and  responsibility — all  these  are  present  in  the  struggle  of 
groups  to  better  their  social  and  economic  position.  This  has  perhaps 
been  the  chief  social  value  of  the  labor  movement  to  date — its  profound 
educative  influence  on  the  development  of  a  social  spirit  within  the 
group.  And  in  time  of  war — in  the  recent  great  struggle — somewhat 
of  such  a  situation  has  been  approached  in  the  community  as  a  whole, 
between  as  well  as  within  groups.  In  war-time  there  is  a  dominant 
national  purpose,  an  intense  necessity  for  cooperative  endeavor,  and 
the  nation  largely  recognizes  this,  calls  for  loyalty,  receives  it,  and 
truly  seeks  to  protect  all  its  members.  This  fact  has  not  only  proved 
the  possibility,  under  certain  conditions,  of  evoking  this  general  sense  of 
social  responsibility  in  groups  and  individuals  who  otherwise  seem  wholly 
to  lack  it,  but  it  has  led  many,  who  felt  the  value  and  the  thrill — for 
such  cooperation  includes  as  by  no  means  the  least  of  its  advantages  a 
very  general  emotional  satisfaction — who  rejoiced  in  the  presence  at 
last  of  national  solidarity,  to  believe  that  such  solidarity  marked  the 
birth  of  a  new  spirit  that  would  continue  to  function  in  time  of  peace. 
These  optimistic — or  perhaps,  since  they  are  our  militarists,  we  had 


The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education  259 

better  say  pessimistic — individuals  utterly  overlooked  the  fact  that  the 
war  situation  is  intensely  artificial,  that  it  is  sustained  by  the  most 
vicious  and  insidious  of  propaganda,  that  it  tends,  if  continued  for  any 
length  of  time,  to  destroy  the  nations  that  indulge  in  it,  and  to  sacrifice 
upon  the  altar  of  futile  greed  the  very  nation  whose  solidarity  it  may 
achieve.  The  war  "spirit  of  service"  was  for  the  most  part  genuine 
enough,  and  it  is  highly  revealing  as  indicating  the  potentialities  resi- 
dent in  human  nature  hitherto  unsuspected  by  most  men  of  today; 
but  it  cannot  continue  into  the  weak  piping  days  of  peace  because  the 
situation  in  peace  time  is,  or  has  been  to  the  present,  a  very  different 
situation  from  that  in  time  of  war.  The  former  is  not  a  situation  calling 
for  education  in  social  responsibility;  the  latter  is. 

But  let  us  examine  more  closely  this  social  situation  in  time  of  peace. 
What  elements  does  it  contain  of  the  situation  in  which  social  respon- 
sibility is  developed? 

In  the  first  place,  the  development  of  industrial  technique  and  the 
consequent  division  of  labor  and  integration  of  society  have  made  a 
considerable  degree  of  group  cooperation  absolutely  essential.  When 
the  industrial  revolution  was  just  starting,  and  the  theories  and  habits 
upon  which  we  have  acted  ever  since  were  first  developed,  this  was  not 
at  all  the  case;  but  especially  of  late  years  such  cooperation  and  rea- 
sonably efficient  service  of  community  needs  has  become  a  matter  of 
the  utmost  necessity  for  the  continuance  of  that  industrial  revolution 
and  the  civilization  it  has  created.  Thus  the  first  factor  in  the  situation 
is  certainly  present  today. 

There  has  been,  moreover,  in  the  recent  decrease  in  productivity 
throughout  the  world  directly  attributable  to  the  war,  an  increasing 
realization  of  the  necessity  of  holding  groups  responsible  for  community 
service.  The  present  agitation  in  favor  of  the  extension  of  the  idea  and 
the  attitude  of  the  public  utility,  and  the  stress  laid  upon  the  needs  of 
"the  public"  in  addition  to  the  demands  of  struggling  workers  and 
employers,  whatever  its  motives  may  be,  and  their  sincerity  is  cer- 
tainly in  many  cases  highly  dubious,  can  not  fail  to  have  a  very  bene- 
ficial effect  in  hastening  this  realization.  Unfortunately,  as  yet  industrial 
groups  are  not  organized  upon  a  basis  which  permits  the  performance 
of  these  socially  expected  responsibilities;  and  those  upon  whom  the 
ultimate  control  of  production  now  depends  legally  and  to  a  great  ex- 
tent actually,  the  employers  and  the  "capitalists,"  are  not  yet  comprised 
within  this  demand  for  social  responsibility.  The  public  conscience 
is  quick  to  rebuke  striking  miners,  but  it  quite  overlooks  the  inefficient 


1 


260  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

methods  and  the  exorbitant  profiteering  of  the  coal-operators,  which 
are  socially  even  more  undesirable.  As  the  brilliant  English  economist 
R.  H.  Tawney  says,  "To  recommend  an  increase  hi  productivity  as  the 
solution  to  the  industrial  problem  is  like  offering  spectacles  to  a  man 
with  a  broken  leg,  or  trying  to  atone  for  putting  a  bad  sixpence  hi  the 
plate  one  Sunday  by  putting  a  bad  shilling  hi  it  the  next.  ...  A 
functional  society  would  extinguish  mercilessly  those  property  rights 
which  yield  income  without  service.  There  would  be  an  end  of  the 
property  rights  hi  virtue  of  which  the  industries  on  which  the  welfare 
of  whole  populations  depends  are  administered  by  the  agents  and  for 
the  profit  of  absentee  shareholders."  1 

Accordingly,  there  is  a  general  lack  of  recognition  by  industrial  groups 
of  any  social  obligations,  a  lack  of  recognition  bred  of  a  century  of  busi- 
ness philosophy.  Where  this  responsibility  has  not  been  demanded  by 
public  opinion  and  social  custom,  but  has  rather  been  expressly  dis- 
couraged and  overlaid  by  the  competitive  business  principle  of  making 
profit,  it  is  not  surprising  that  industrial  groups  have  not  given  voice  to 
much  sense  of  social  obligation.  Yet  the  persistence  of  the  second  strain 
throughout  the  labor  movement,  its  return  again  and  again  after  re- 
peated rebuffs  and  hi  the  face  of  deep  public  hostility,  as  well  as  the 
remarkable  response  which  the  recent  demands  for  efficient  production 
have  met — a  response  that  has  gone  much  further  than  the  protectors 
of  "the  public"  dreamed  or  desired  it  would,  to  the  demand  for  the 
total  reorganization  of  industry  upon  a  more  efficient  basis  of  serving 
needs  than  private  profits — the  rise  and  spread  of  the  New  Unionism, 
all  betoken  the  readiness  with  which  the  worker  is  willing  to  meet  this 
social  obligation  half-way.  If  this  second  strain  leads  the  workers,  as 
hi  England,  to  champion  a  social  order  which  will  be  an  advance  from 
an  acquisitive  toward  a  functional  society,  if  it  becomes  the  conscious 
aim  of  the  labor  movement  hi  their  struggles  upward  from  the  depths 
into  which  the  industrial  revolution  hurled  them  to  create  a  new  and 
more  harmonious  society,  as  indeed  it  has  always  been  their  more  or  less 
articulate  endeavor,  then  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  attitude 
which  those  as  yet  preserving  the  calm  of  neutrality  hi  the  industrial 
struggle  must  assume. 

As  yet  there  is  little  answering  sense  of  responsibility  by  society 

to  the  single  group.    Our  whole  political  theory,  in  fact,  has  deprecated 

"class  legislation"  and  "group  interests"  and  demanded  that  every 

social  measure  must  work  for  the  benefit  and  advantage  of  the  entire 

1  The  Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1919. 


The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education  261 

population.  On  this  ground  all  laws  designed  to  benefit  and  protect 
certain  groups,  giving  them  privileges  and  rights  not  accorded  to  all 
members  of  the  nation,  such  as  minimum  wages,  limitation  of  hours, 
insurance  and  pensions,  and  the  like,  have  been  vigorously  denounced 
as  "  class  legislation",  as  though  it  were  not  to  the  benefit  of  the  com- 
munity as  a  whole  for  its  members  to  enjoy  improved  conditions.  It 
is  difficult  to  reconcile  this  attitude,  however,  with  the  perfect  willing- 
ness to  protect  certain  industries  and  special  classes  through  the  tariff — 
especially  since  the  argument  in  its  favor  has  been  precisely  this  one, 
that  the  prosperity  of  the  small  group  redounded  to  the  benefit  of  the 
community  as  a  whole,  and  since  the  particular  application  is  in  this 
case  much  more  dubious  than  in  the  other.  Nevertheless  the  community 
is  gradually  coming  to  a  recognition  that  it  has  a  duty  and  an  obligation 
to  its  component  groups,  especially  to  the  most  oppressed  and  sweated 
of  them,  as  the  enactment  of  much  "welfare  legislation"  betokens.  The 
hostility,  however,  with  which  the  impartial  representatives  of  "the 
public's"  interests  at  Albany  regarded  such  legislation  in  1920  makes 
it  plain  that  "the  public"  which  supported  those  representatives  cer- 
tainly has  still  far  to  go  before  it  recognizes  its  full  obligations. 

And  finally,  in  time  of  peace  there  is  very  little  common  national 
and  social  purpose.  The  recent  efforts  made  to  replace  the  war  purpose 
of  "making  the  world  safe  for  democracy" — a  purpose  very  powerful 
indeed,  and  quite  sincere  if  you  interpret  "democracy"  according  to  its 
differing  meanings  for  different  individuals — with  the  peace  aim  of 
"securing  the  supremacy  of  American  Business,"  are  bound  to  be  a 
failure,  because  no  one  is  much  interested  in  the  supremacy  of  American 
Business  except  the  American  business  man.  Such  an  aim  can  scarcely 
serve  as  the  rallying  cry  of  a  real  national  solidarity.  Yet  for  all  that 
there  does  exist  a  very  powerful  social  motive  in  civic  feeling  and  patriot- 
ism— a  motive  usually  latent,  but  capable  in  time  of  crisis  of  sweeping 
everything  before  it. 

From  this  examination,  then,  we  can  conclude  that  there  certainly 
do  exist  tendencies  favorable  to  the  creation  of  a  situation  in  which  social 
responsibility  can  and  will  be  developed,  but  that  the  modern  organiza- 
tion of  industry  for  the  most  part  fails  to  foster  them  if  it  is  not  actually 
hostile.  The  problem,  then,  becomes  two-fold:  in  order  to  create  a 
situation  in  which  habits  and  standards  of  social  responsibility 
will  be  naturally  developed  and  will  increasingly  function,  it  is  neces- 
sary, first,  to  create  favorable  social  conditions  through  the  modifica- 
tion of  the  present  economic  and  legal  system  of  controlling  and  ad- 


262  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

ministering  industrial  production  and  technique,  and  secondly,  it  is 
necessary  to  build  up  the  new  attitude  of  expecting  and  granting  social 
responsibility  in  production  through  actual  educational  propaganda, 
in  school,  in  press,  in  every  means  of  social  training,  supplemented, 
where  necessary,  by  the  judicial  application  of  social  pressure  as  an 
instrumentality  of  education.  Both  of  these  methods  must  be  em- 
ployed simultaneously,  because  neither  is  possible  alone. 

What,  then,  are  those  changes  in  the  social  structure  which  appear 
likely  to  lead  to  a  situation  more  favorable  to  the  development  of  habits 
of  social  response?  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  average  radical  reformer 
of  society  fails,  and  fails  miserably.  There  is  no  single  system  of  Utopian 
reform  adequate  to  meet  the  infinite  complexity  of  even  the  industrial 
side  of  modern  civilization,  to  say  nothing  of  the  multitude  of  non- 
industrial  factors  that  must  be  considered.  No  plan,  no  theoretically 
elaborated  ideal  social  structure,  however  great  its  value  and  import- 
ance as  a  spur  to  new  achievement — and  as  such  a  spur  the  creation 
of  Utopias  is  admittedly  an  invaluable  function  of  the  human  spirit — 
no  "solution"  or  panacea,  can  be  propounded  as  a  practicable  program 
of  accomplishment.  The  value  of  such  imaginative  constructions  of 
the  spirit  lies  in  the  light  they  throw  upon  practical  problems,  in  the 
illumination  and  clarification  of  purposes  and  standards  that  can  be 
applied  as  criteria  of  future  achievement,  and  in  their  utility  as  regulative 
ideas,  ideals  to  inspire  men  and  to  be  worked  toward  until  in  that  very 
process  of  realization  they  are  themselves  modified,  readjusted  to  new 
needs,  and  transcended.  Just  such  an  ideal  is  the  picture  of  a  society 
hi  which  all  component  groups  cooperate  toward  a  genuine  social  pur- 
pose, each  contributing  its  share  to  the  enhancing  and  enriching  of  the 
whole,  each  sympathizing  with  and  making  its  own  the  aims  and  in- 
terests of  its  fellows.  It  stands  as  the  type  of  social  organization  that 
contemporary  conditions  demand.  But  the  realization  of  such  a  society, 
nay,  any  progress  whatever  toward  it,  can  come  about  only  through 
the  patient  and  laborious  application  of  intelligence  to  the  specific  social 
and  economic  problems,  through  experiment,  through  trial  and  error, 
mayhap  through  failure  and  success. 

Nevertheless  our  examination  has  resulted  in  the  emerging  of  several 
general  principles,  which,  provisional  as  they  be,  still  may  serve  to  in- 
dicate the  general  trend  which  the  reorganization  of  industrial  life  must 
take  if  it  is  to  create  a  situation  in  which  social  responsibility  will  thrive 
and  wax  strong.  In  the  first  place,  we  must  conclude  that  for  such  a 
situation  to  result,  both  the  present  business  unions  and  the  industries 


The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education  263 

of  which  they  are  a  part  must  in  some  way  be  organized  upon  a  basis  of 
production  to  serve  the  needs  of  the  community.  This  may  mean 
"Whitley  Councils"  of  a  sort,  joint  councils  of  the  employers  and  em- 
ployees in  an  entire  industry  invested  with  administrative  powers;  it 
may  mean  the  development  of  shop  committees  and  plans  involving  the 
cooperation  of  employer  and  employee  in  the  actual  business  of  pro- 
duction. But  it  must  also  comprise  some  method  for  the  regulation  of 
the  profit  motive  through  the  salutary  influence  of  an  awakened  public 
opinion  that  will  demand  service,  and  will  allow  reward  only  for  service 
well  done.  Or,  it  may  mean  in  certain  industries,  like  the  railroads  and 
the  mines,  actual  government  ownership  and  industrial  management, 
with  direct  public  participation  in  the  control,  as  tentatively  outlined 
in  the  Plumb  Plan.  In  fact,  it  does  not  seem  probable  that  without  the 
elimination  of  the  profit  motive,  and  of  domination  by  the  market,  any 
organization  of  industry  can  ultimately  insure  the  supremacy  of  the 
motive  of  public  service.  But  such  a  thoroughgoing  reorganization  is 
not  yet  applicable  to  very  many  industries,  and  if  it  come,  it  can  come 
only  as  the  result  of  a  gradual  and  somewhat  prolonged  education  in 
responsible  power  through  less  complete  participation  in  the  control  of 
industry.  The  railway  workers,  cooperating  with  the  railway  managers, 
could,  it  seems  probable,  assume  such  control  today,  and  with  not  too 
great  transitional  disorder  transform  the  railroad  system  from  the 
servant  of  the  shareholder  and  of  the  expert  in  high  finance  to  the  servant 
of  national  distribution;  but  it  is  difficult  to  point  to  many  other  in- 
dustries where  today  a  like  ability  exists. 

Whatever  method  is  evolved  will  necessarily  be  adopted  slowly  and 
with  considerable  hesitation;  our  knowledge  is  at  present  entirely  in- 
adequate to  justify  more  than  a  purely  experimental  point  of  view. 
What  does  appear  certain,  however,  is  that  the  steps  that  are  taken  must 
come  with  the  cooperation  of  and  grow  out  of  the  present  organiza- 
tions of  labor,  and  that  they  must  secure  at  least  the  consent  and 
honest  acquiescence  of  the  employer.  The  attempt  at  any  ill-advised 
plan  of  " public  ownership"  in  accord  with  the  strict  Marxian  theory, 
which  would  antagonize  both  the  ousted  capitalists  and  the  existent 
labor  organizations/ hallowed  through  the  struggles  and  achievements 
of  the  past,  would  necessarily  fail  miserably.  The  nation  can  not  stand 
any  more  post  offices.  The  most  fruitful  path,  on  the  whole,  would 
appear  to  be  the  sympathetic  fostering  of  the  spirit  of  the  New  Unionism 
wherever  it  appears,  and  a  cordial  willingness  on  the  part  of  employer 
and  government  to  meet  it  half-way  and  cooperate  with  it.  To  many, 


264  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

such  is  the  bitterness  of  the  economic  conflict,  and  so  irreconcilable 
appear  the  attitudes  of  both  parties  today.  Such  a  cordial  cooperation 
seems  utterly  impossible,  and  they  see  hope  only  in  a  cataclysmic  revo- 
lution. This  may  indeed  be  true;  but  there  are  few  who  would  not  be 
loath,  in  this  ostensibly  free  and  democratic  land  of  America,  to  be 
compelled  to  admit  it.  Whether  it  is  so  or  not  will  depend  largely  upon 
the  employers  and  the  public  and  the  attitude  which  they  adopt.  Or- 
ganized labor  is  determined  to  have  what  it  wants,  a  secure  and  equal 
position  in  society,  and  it  is  going  to  change  the  entire  nature  of  our 
state  and  our  industrial  civilization  to  secure  it.  It  will  be  the  part  of 
wisdom  for  "capital"  and  "the  public"  to  accept  this  fact  and  aid  labor 
to  secure  its  aims  with  as  little  friction  as  possible.  The  employer,  like 
the  British  aristocrat,  and,  it  now  seems,  like  the  British  capitalist,  must 
realize  when  it  is  time  to  retire  gracefully  from  the  lid  of  the  kettle  when 
the  pressure  gets  too  great.  He  must  be  willing  to  give  up  what  he  has 
hitherto  regarded  as  his  inalienable  rights — the  right  to  run  his  business 
as  he  pleases,  and  the  right  to  make  just  as  much  profit  as  he  pleases. 
There  are  many  individual  employers  who  are  quite  willing  thus  to  assist 
in  the  revocation  of  their  own  privileges,  for  they  realize  that  social 
advantage  must  in  the  long  run  take  precedence  over  their  immediate 
private  interests;  and,  may  we  not  add,  they  have  the  example  of  Russia 
to  edify  them  if  they  do  not.  ! 

But  if  the  unions  and  industry  in  general  must  be  reorganized  on  the 
lines  toward  which  the  New  Unionism  is  working,  there  must  also  be 
a  recognition  by  society  of  its  reciprocal  obligation  to  the  groups  it 
expects  to  serve  its  needs.  The  old  theory  that  government  exists  only 
to  serve  the  interests  that  are  common  to  all  citizens,  and  which  under 
those  conditions  included  only  the  administration  of  justice  and  the 
public  defense,  must  be  revised  in  accordance  with  the  present  situa- 
tion in  which  the  interests  of  groups  have  become  inextricably  inter- 
twined. This  taking  into  account  of  the  manifold  special  interests  of 
various  industrial  groups  may  even  extend  to  the  provision  for  indus- 
trial representation  in  the  central  legislative  body,  as  a  measure  to 
secure  the  adequate  social  consideration  of  group  interests.  In  any 
case,  there  must  be  social  guarantees  of  a  reasonably  equal  status  and 
position,  with  minimum  and  possibly  maximum  determined,  the  latter 
through  a  graduated  income  tax,  and  effective  provision  against  unem- 
ployment. In  other  words,  the  society  must  guarantee  the  main  aims  of 
the  workers,  stability  and  security  from  want.  This  also,  to  judge  from 
present  tendencies,  does  not  seem  a  wholly  impossible  development. 


The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education  265 

Finally,  industries  must  be  definitely  held  responsible,  both  employ- 
ers and  employees,  if  that  distinction  remains,  to  the  performance  of 
their  social  function  efficiently  and  well,  with  the  expectation  enforced 
through  a  rigorous  public  opinion,  of  securing  a  response.  Group 
individualism  must  cease  to  be  the  dominant  philosophy,  the  habits 
it  has  engendered  must  cease  to  control,  and  "public"  and  govern- 
ment alike  must  expect  and  demand  efficient  functioning. 

What  are  the  prospects  that  in  such  a  changed  social  situation  eco- 
nomic groups  would  respect  community  interests  instead  of  regarding 
merely  their  group  advantage,  would  merge  the  two  into  one?  There 
would  indeed  be  created  a  situation  in  which  group  responsibility  might 
naturally  arise  and  flourish,  and  the  obvious  obstacles  presented  by  the 
present  situation  would  be  removed;  but  what  would  be  the  chances 
of  its  actual  development?  There  are  several  considerations  which 
make  it  appear  that  they  are  not  unfavorable. 

First,  there  is  the  probable  psychological  result  of  the  change  within 
the  union  itself.  The  union  has  already  altered  the  workers'  domi- 
nant attitude  from  one  of  individualism  to  one  of  group  cooperation; 
the  worker  now  thinks  not  merely  in  terms  of  his  own  interests,  but 
also  in  terms  of  the  group  interests  that  he  identifies  with  his  own. 
This  is  certainly  a  change  significant  enough.  The  old  pioneering  self- 
reliance  has  been  supplanted,  by  a  confidence  and  a  reliance  upon  group 
cooperation,  in  itself  a  profound  psychological  change.  But  the  pur- 
pose of  the  union  has  remained  individualistic;  at  best,  it  has  been 
expanded  to  take  in  the  working  class.  As  in  the  process  of  develop- 
ment and  reorganization  this  purpose  changes  and  comes  more  and 
more  to  emphasize  production,  as  the  New  Unionism  betokens,  it  will 
find  the  men  to  whom  it  appeals  accustomed  more  and  more  to  think 
in  terms  of  cooperation;  it  will  face  the  problem,  not  of  creating  an 
entirely  new  type  of  response,  which  problem,  difficult  as  it  is,  the  union 
has  already  accomplished  in  organizing  the  frontier  American,  but 
rather  of  extending  the  scope  and  applicability  of  the  old  one.  The 
task  before  the  society  that  proposes  to  bring  about  such  an  extension 
of  previously  acquired  habits  is  not,  apparently,  so  great  as  the  task 
it  has  already  accomplished  in  producing  a  relatively  unfamiliar  habit 
of  response  within  the  union. 

Moreover,  another  important  psychological  trait  will  come  to  the 
aid  of  the  cooperative  one.  There  exists  a  tendency,  an  impulse,  an 
instinct,  a  way  of  acting — call  it  what  you  will — that  impels 
men  to  creative  and  productive  endeavor,  to  desire  to  do  what  they 


266  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

do  well.  At  present  the  habits  and  training  in  cooperative  group  action 
run  directly  counter  to  this  impulse;  the  union  bids  the  unionist  work 
so  as  to  get  the  most  wages,  even  at  the  expense  of  sabotage  and  ineffi- 
cient production.  With  the  industrialism  of  the  union  and  the  partici- 
pation in  and  emphasis  on  the  processes  of  production,  this  creative 
tendency  or  impulse  will  directly  coincide  with  and  reinforce  the  ten- 
dency toward  efficient  functioning  as  a  social  organization,  and  the 
two  most  powerful  tendencies  in  the  life  of  the  worker,  the  instinct  of 
workmanship  and  the  desire  to  make  money,  will  strengthen  instead 
of  as  at  present  negating  each  other.  This  is  already  appearing  in  the 
new  unionism  of  the  railway  workers,  the  miners,  and  the  clothing 
makers. 

There  is  still  another  reason  for  believing  that  social  responsibility 
will  develop  in  the  situation  we  have  described.  The  chief  source  of 
dispute  between  groups  at  present,  between  skilled  and  unskilled  work- 
ers, between  workers  and  capitalists,  is  the  disparity  of  social  position 
between  them.  The  lower  group  desires  to  rise  to  the  level  of  the  higher, 
the  higher  wants  to  keep  above  the  lower.  The  increasing  tendency 
towards  a  more  equal  social  status  of  all  members  of  society,  one  of  the 
developments  of  union  organization,  the  gradual  movement  already 
considerably  advanced  toward  the  equalization  of  income,  to  which 
the  war,  in  lowering  the  salaried  and  professional  classes  almost  to  the 
level  of  the  wage-worker,  has  powerfully  contributed,  will  remove  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  group  dispute.  The  intense  longing  for  "equal- 
ity" is  important  and  strong  only  in  a  situation  in  which  there  is  great 
and  obvious  inequality,  just  as  it  never  occurs  to  any  man  to  proclaim, 
"I'm  just  as  good  as  you  are,"  unless  in  some  particular  he  obviously 
isn  't.  In  a  society  of  relatively  equal  citizens,  such  as  the  development 
of  the  labor  movement  is  tending  towared,  and  such  as  the  three  general 
principles  we  have  formulated  would  tend  to  bring  about,  men  would 
probably  be  too  busy  improving  and  developing  their  qualitatively  and 
individually  different  excellencies  to  worry  much  about  small  quantita- 
tive differences.  Class  and  group  bitterness  and  rivalry  finds  little 
food  in  a  farming  community.  Such  a  society  would  probably  even 
tolerate  without  bitterness  and  probably  with  much  pride  the  greater 
rewards  it  accorded  to  those  men  obviously  expert  in  fields  where  they 
could  appreciate  genius  and  skill,  even  as  today  the  very  workers  who 
bitterly  rail  against  the  "capitalists"  and  the  "plutes"  take  great  pride 
in  the  immense  incomes  of  their  well  appreciated  movie  stars,  and 
cherish  no  rancor  against  (striking  bedfellow!)  Mr.  Henry  Ford. 


The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education  267 

And  finally,  economic  groups  do  not  exist  in  vacuo,  but  have  their 
place  within  nations  which  are  very  much  indeed  collective  wholes. 
Though  the  groups  are  not  as  such  very  consciously  part  of  the  nation, 
the  individuals  who  compose  them  certainly  are.  Every  unionist  is  a 
citizen  of  his  country  as  well  as  a  member  of  his  own  group,  and  if  it 
came  to  a  genuine  conflict  between  group  and  patriotic  motives,  would 
probably  follovTthiiJatter.  The  way  in  which  the  employers  have  util- 
ized the  patriotic  motive  to  their  own  advantage  is  notorious,  and  shows 
how  influential  that  motive  is.  If  systematically  thus  misused,  it  will 
fall  into  disrepute,  as  it  has  in  some  European  lands  where  the  throne 
has  been  wont  to  rally  the  workers  to  its  support  through  rumors  of 
foreign  aggression.  But  intelligently  and  honestly  applied  through  a 
social  agency,  it  can  be  made  to  stimulate  powerfully  the  sense  of  social 
obligation  of  a  disgruntled  group. 

So  far  patriotism  has  not  been  very  successfully  used  in  developing 
group  responsibility,  and  it  does  not  appear  as  though  it  could  well  be, 
because  responsibility,  while  ultimately  to  society,  has  been  legally  and 
actually  first  of  all  to  the  employer  and  to  his  interests.  The  worker 
knows  that  submission  on  his  part  will  increase  profits  and  dividends,  but 
he  does  not  see  how  it  may  also  benefit  the  community.  He  thinks  that 
better  conditions  for  himself  and  his  fellows  will  benefit  the  community 
just  as  directly,  and  probably  more.  But  if  industry  is  organized  for 
production,  with  cooperative  participation  in  the  service  of  human  needs 
as  its  expected  and  wonted  aim,  if  the  producers  thus  came  to  coincide 
completely  with  the  consumers,  so  that  they  could  feel  that  the  govern- 
ment really  represented  them  because  they  were  society,  then  the  soli- 
darity of  the  class  would  be  merged  with  and  not  antagonistic  to  the 
national  solidarity  or  patriotism. 

Moreover,  there  remains  the  possibility  of  developing  the  national 
purpose  itself  so  that  instead  of  being  fitful  and  largely  bellicose  it  might 
take  its  place  amongst  the  nations  of  the  earth  in  the  performance  in  that 
larger  field  of  some  especial  task.  There  are  numerous  non-economic 
and  cultural  aims  that  might  together  furnish  a  sufficient  national  and 
civic  purpose  for  the  efficient  functioning  of  groups  to  serve.  It  would 
indeed  seem  as  though  the  preservation  and  the  enhancing  of  all  the 
values  of  Western  civilization  would  in  itself  be  a  sufficient  purpose,  when 
once  the  supreme  need  is  made  apparent,  for  such  a  socially  responsible 
activity.  If  men  are  willing  to  forsake  all  they  hold  dear  and  risk  life 
itself  to  defend  that  civilization,  it  would  seem  as  though  when  once  they 
realized  that  it  was  menaced  with  just  as  dangerous  internal  disorgani- 


268  The  Problem  of  Group  Responsibility 

zation  they  could  be  led  to  do  what  on  the  whole  they  want  to  do 
anyway. 

Nor,  in  estimating  the  chances  of  such  a  situation  calling  forth  a  social 
response,  must  we  overlook  the  influence  of  individual  men  who  are 
convinced  of  its  necessity — the  influence  of  outstanding  personalities 
and  leaders  like  Sidney  Hillman.  When  conditions  are  ripe  one  such 
leader  can  work  wonders  in  crystallizing  sentiment  and  giving  the  impetus 
to  the  formation  of  new  habits  and  attitudes. 

Nevertheless,  after  all  these  factors  are  taken  into  consideration,  it  is 
evident  that  some  form  of  force  will  always  remain  necessary,  just  as 
among  individuals  complete  anarchism  is  not  and  does  not  promise  soon 
to  become  a  very  practicable  social  arrangement.  In  the  situation  as 
reorganized  this  force  may  well  be  employed  as  an  educative  measure. 
When  so  employed,  however,  against  groups  and  not  individuals,  to  be 
ultimately  of  any  avail  it  must  be  employed  to  develop  habits  of  social 
responsibility  and  never  simply  as  a  means  to  the  attainment  of  social 
peace  at  any  price. 

The  most  effective  social  pressure  is  the  force  of  public  opinion — not 
public  opinion  as  voiced  by  the  editors  of  newspapers,  but  the  real  and 
genuine  feelings  and  attitude  of  all  the  members  of  society.  It  is  signif- 
icant that  even  under  present  conditions  it  has  proved  infinitely  more 
efficacious  against  the  selfishness  of  economic  groups  than  any  scheme 
of  police  power  yet  devised.  A  law  against  a  strike  is  quite  apt  to  provoke 
it;  an  overwhelmingly  adverse  public  opinion  is  bound  to  result  in  its 
failure,  and  probably  to  prevent  its  outbreak.  Hence  it  is  that  all  the 
competent  investigators  of  the  system  of  compulsory  arbitration  have 
declared  against  the  compulsory  features  and  have,  like  the  President's 
Industrial  Commission,  preferred  to  rely  solely  and  entirely  on  the  public 
opinion  following  upon  full  publicity. 

But  if  a  group  should  still,  in  the  face  of  such  a  united  public  opinion, 
prove  obstinately  recalcitrant,  it  will  be  necessary  and  under  such  condi- 
tions quite  possible  to  proceed  to  apply  direct  pressure.  There  are  untold 
possibilities  in  the  use  of  economic  ostracism,  for  instance,  when  em- 
ployed by  a  constituted  authority  and  supported  by  the  weight  of  a  great 
public  opinion  against  the  group  ostracised.  There  are  hi  fact  such 
possibilities  hi  it  that  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  group  even  compelling 
hi  order  to  further  its  own  interests  the  mere  threat  of  such  an  action. 
It  seems  as  though  the  employment  of  such  severe  measures  might,  in  a 
society  organized  primarily  for  production,  bear  somewhat  the  relation  to 
the  prevention  of  group  depredation  that  capital  punishment  does  to  the 


The  Problem  as  an  Essay  in  Education  269 

prevention  of  every  man  murdering  his  neighbor:  a  relation  which,  though 
present,  can  hardly  be  said  to  enter  appreciably  into  the  situation. 

These  considerations  must  not,  however,  be  allowed  to  induce  a  too 
confident  optimism.  The  pathway  to  a  more  socially  responsible  society 
is  not  easy;  and  long  and  arduous  will  be  the  journey,  many  the  slips  and 
failures.  These  suggestions  do  not,  of  course,  point  to  any  "solution," 
sinple  or  complex.  There  is  no  "  solution,"  in  the  sense  of  a  formula,  how- 
ever elaborate,  that  can  be  applied  to  the  concrete  material,  any  more 
than  there  ever  is  a  "solution"  to  the  complex  human  problems  of  society. 
They  may,  however,  serve  to  illuminate  the  problem;  and  after  all  the 
important  consideration  is  that  the  problem,  the  necessity  of  developing 
within  society  a  sense  of  mutual  responsibility  for  the  efficient  functioning 
of  those  tasks  which  the  members  of  society,  be  they  individuals  or 
groups,  have  as  their  chosen  duty  to  perform,  be  clearly  recognized.  The 
important  thing  is  that  the  problem  be  clearly  envisaged  in  its  full  setting, 
and  worked  upon  patiently  through  long  experiment.  When  once  its 
importance  is  fully  realized,  the  nation  will  have  already  gone  a  long  ways, 
a  very  long  ways,  indeed,  towards  eliminating  its  consequences. 

And  thus  we  return,  as  men  have  so  often  returned,  to  the  guiding 
light  of  the  best  Greek  thought  about  society,  and  to  Plato;  for  what  is 
our  ideal  state  but  that  heavenly  city  in  the  sky  where  each  group  does 
its  work  harmoniously  and  joyously,  and  what  is  that  which  we  have 
been  calling  "the  sense  of  social  responsibility"  but  that  saving  virtue  of 
Justice  which  is  both  the  product  and  the  prerequisite  of  a  well-ordered 
social  life?  True,  the  philosopher  need  hi  our  state  no  longer  be  king,  and 
keep  the  groups  hi  their  proper  relation,  for  we  have  discovered  that 
the  regulative  power  of  Justice  in  the  state  arises  through  being  just  in 
small  things;  but  he  will  be  all  the  freer  to  revisit  the  ideal  realm  whence 
he  has  brought  us  his  vision,  that  he  may  return  with  new  insight  and 
new  illumination  to  assist  in  the  eternal  ideal  progress  of  the  quality  and 
texture  of  the  life  of  the  spirit. 


JLWl    , 

RETURN  T~ 


KJESF 


Y.C  86227 


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